I keep getting emails asking why I’ve been so optimistic for Q4 and for Q1 2015. In its most simple form, the chart below cannot give anyone a reason to be anything but: Click on picture to enlarge The chart tracks total N. American rail traffic on a weekly basis since 2009. The green arrows…
Food. Water. Shelter. The trifecta of essentials that has been grilled into anyone who has ever participated in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Rangers, or any other activity involving wilderness survival training. Companies must survive too and have these needs as well. Almost all businesses need a shelter or a space from which to perform operations,…
Just as T. Boone Pickens warned “watch the rig counts” last week , so the Baker Hughes rig count just collapsed for the 3rd week in a row to 8-month lows. This is the fastest 3-week drop since mid-2009. Crude prices were already weak but the news has flushed WTI to a $52 handle (not seen…
$800 BILLION! That’s the amount of money China’s reserve adjustment is putting into the market in 2015. “Beijing is trying to stimulate lending and they are trying not to use strong measures,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, an economist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong. “Policy makers across the globe are trying to boost demand by increasing…
The stats were strongly with the bulls last week but that ended on Friday. The historical stats this week are neutral today, tomorrow and Friday, strongly bearish on Wednesday, and the markets are closed of course on Thursday. (SPX) needs a retracement to set up a decent rising support trendlineand we should see that this…
Wall Street has seen some key records this year. While investors cheered the surge in benchmarks with S&P 500 (SPX) hitting 52-week and all-time record highs so far, 2014 also became a record year for initial public offerings (IPOs). The U.S. IPO market was the biggest in 2014 since 2000 in terms of both value…
Our original forecast for oil back in 1997 was that it should rise to reach the $100 level at least by 2007. We reached $99.29 in 2007 and then 2008 was a wild trading year reaching $147.27 intraday crashing back to $35.13 and closing the year at $44.60. Oil made the intraday low in 2009…
Gold had ended 2013 at $1206.80 per ounce and as you can see, today we are almost at the same level where we were one year ago. The precious metal initially tried to rally during 2014 as escalating tensions between Ukraine and Russia (and the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and EU.) pushed down stocks on…
Since 2010, the average return of our weekly best scoring ADRs have outpaced the MSCI EAFE by a median 455 bps over the following year, with no turnover. According to the Seasonal Investor database, the EFA has gained in 7 of the past 10 first quarters, returning a median 2.23%. Click on picture to enlarge The following ADRs…
Traditionally, the rule of thumb in retirement planning is that you need 70-80% of your current income during retirement. This lower figure represents all the expenses (transportation, income tax, etc.) that may not appear in your retirement budget. However, basing the size of your retirement nest egg on the size of your income…
