Photo Credit: International Monetary Fund Comments Pretty much a nothing-burger. Few significant changes, if any. The only interesting thing is that they have given up on inflation getting anywhere near 2% for now. Despite lower unemployment levels, labor market conditions are still pretty punk. Much of the unemployment rate improvement comes more from discouraged workers,…
Sanctions and embargoes don’t work. And in the case of Cuba, it took the US 52 years to partially realize that. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed into law a Cuban trade embargo. I have long known how foolish Kennedy’s decision was (and the decision of every president since). But I did not know until today…
Is the U.S. consumer aware of global turmoil? According to the Zacks Industry Ranks, the answer is clearly ‘Not Really.’ Consumer discretionary/cyclical stocks remain firmly on a momentum-driven roll. A plethora of good fundamental reasons stand behind the consumer spending ebullience and the related U.S. stock-trading momentum. Jobs are more plentiful than they have been…
The latest oil inventory report shows that the trend that has been present in oil inventories throughout most of this year continued to be broken, as it was last week. However, the fundamentals did not match the price action of one of the world’s most important commodities. The quantity of crude oil in the nation’s…
Last week we started a series of letters on the topics I think we need to research in depth as we try to peer into the future and think about how 2015 will unfold. In forecasting US growth, I wrote that we really need to understand the relationships between the boom in energy production on…
When reviewing a deep value screen like Magic Formula® Investing (MFI), it always piques the interest to discover a company that has 5-year compound annual revenue growth of 34% and operating income growth of 112%! Nevertheless, these kinds of stocks DO appear, and when they do they can frequently deliver HUGE gains, as investors benefit…
As the Fed continues to rely on seasonally-adjusted survey data to validate its belief that the time to hike rates is coming, even as market-implied inflation swap rates are back to 2008 levels, the one thing that continues to happen everywhere but in the US is precisely what the Fed wishes for the US (as…
Shares of Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals (CYCC) dropped as much as 75% on December 16, 2014 after the Data and Safety Monitoring Committee — DSMB — determined that the company’s drug known as sapacitabine would not reach its primary endpoint of survival in patients with AML — Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The Phase 3 trial known as SEAMLESS…
LendingClub (LC), the first peer-to-peer lending company, made a shining debut on the New York Stock Exchange last week. It raised $870 million in its IPO at a starting price of $15, above its expected price range of $12–$14 (currently trading at $27.90). LendingClub in Focus LendingClub provides an online platform that connects borrowers with…
There is something very attractive about vintage items that just won’t die. They just keep coming back. Same philosophy but better up-to-date technology. It’s not just cars. It’s investment strategies, too. Vintage strategies are often simple, easy to execute and provide ample ‘out-of-sample’ data. In other words one can see how they performed in real…
