Monthly Archives: December 2014

The Fracturing Bubble Down South: Brazil Is Another Victim Of Glo

Did Bloomberg recently acquire The Onion and fail to announce it? Well, you have to read its lead paragraph about Brazil’s latest outlook twice to be sure: Analysts reduced to 0.55 percent  their GDP estimate for 2015 from 0.69 percent the previous week, according to the Dec. 19 central bank survey of about 100 analysts published today. Apparently that’s a tradable data bite for some…

2014 Is Not Russia’s Best Year

   Big Picture, Economy, Sprout Money 2015 promises to become a tough year for Russia. It is almost certain that the country will have to deal with a recession and the question is whether the ruble will be able to catch a break throughout the year. The currency has crashed dramatically as we all know. 2014 was…

Michigan Consumer Sentiment December Final Is Little Changed From

The Final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment for November came in at 93.6, a strong surge from last month’s final but slightly below the 93.8 of the preliminary report, which was a post-recession high and the highest level since January 2007, almost eight years ago. Today’s sentiment level came in above the Investing.com forecast of 93.1. See the…

Walgreens Beats Q1 Earnings, Alliance Boots Deal Bears Fruit

Walgreen Co. (WAG – Analyst Report) reported adjusted net earnings of 81 cents per share in the first quarter of fiscal 2015, up 12.5% from the year-ago adjusted number. The adjusted figure also beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 74 cents by 9.5%. A year-over-year high-single-digit increase in the revenues primarily resulted in this bottom-line improvement. Walgreen Co…

EC Junk Bond R

I have been watching the junk bond (and leveraged loan) market very closely over the past few months mainly because risk appetites there have been closely tied to stock prices for a very long time. In fact, since the bull market was born in March of 2009 until this summer high-yield risk appetites (as measure by…