The recent commodities sell-off has been breathtaking. This is especially true since the most-recent downturn occurred from a level where the expected future returns from commodity index investment were reasonably good – and, as a spread above expected equity or bond returns, probably around the best levels ever. But investors have a strong tendency to…
Another “Oops!” Moment in Shanghai Is there anything the Chinese authorities haven’t tried yet in their attempt to manipulate the Shanghai stock market back up again? Off the cuff there’s nothing we can think of, except maybe shutting the market down entirely. As we have previously pointed out, Chinese investors have fallen prey to the…
Life is full of irony. When I was in school, I hated history. It was boring. It was pointless. How was reading about a bunch of dead people ever going to be useful in life? Today, I consume everything I can find on history. Particularly, financial history. Ironic. Of course, it only took me 25…
When we first exposed the shockingly dire lack of breadth in US equity markets, it was shrugged off by the mainstream media as yet another ‘worry’ in the wall to climb. It seems, however, that facts inevitably force their way to the surface and so both Bloomberg (more than 100% of this year’s increase in the S&P 500…
The Bank of Japan is engaged in the most aggressive asset purchases, and yet it has largely failed to lift inflation. National consumer prices for June will be reported at the end of this week. The headline rate is expected to fall to 0.3% year-over-year from 0.5% in May. This would be the smallest increase since…
Euronav NV (EURN – Snapshot Report) is a crude tanker pure play, and is the third largest public operator of Suezmax and VLCC vessels. Currently, OPEC is producing high levels of crude, and is expected to continue this pattern over the foreseeable future. Euronav is extremely well positioned in the crude tanker market to take advantage of these…
The Advance Report on Durable Goods released today by the Census Bureau was a bit better than expected. Here is the Bureau’s summary on new orders: New orders for manufactured durable goods in June increased $7.7 billion or 3.4 percent to $235.3 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase, up following two consecutive…
There are a number of great companies in the market today. By using the ModernGraham Valuation Model, I’ve selected the five highest dividend yields among the undervalued companies for defensive investors reviewed by ModernGraham. Each company has been determined to be suitable for Defensive Investor according to the ModernGraham approach. This is a sample of one screen…
Social media giant Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) is scheduled to announce second quarter 2015 earnings on Tuesday, July 28, after market close. Analysts are eager for Twitter to announce a replacement for outgoing CEO Dick Costolo and implement new initiatives to make their platform more user-friendly. While they await these changes, Wall Street analysts have been…
A couple of indicators look ominous. Remember when inflation was a worry? How long ago was that? Nowadays it’s deflation, or disinflation if you prefer, that keeps people up at night. The signs are all around, particularly in the ETF market. Case in point: Compare the performance of commodities to that of bonds to get a…
