Central planning asset purchases aimed at propping up prices destroy the essential price discovery needed by private investors. Panicked by the possibility of declines that undermine the official narrative that all is well, authorities the world over are purchasing assets like stocks, bonds and mortgages directly. Central banks are explicitly taking on the role of buyers of…
The eurozone is supposedly in a state of recovery. However, in spite of that recovery, public debt and debt-to-GDP levels are still rising. Austerity is difficult to find in any realistic sense. Please consider Eurozone Borrowing Rises to Record as Recovery Remains Weak. The European Central Bank’s programme of quantitative easing has pushed down interest rates…
Late last month in “The Biggest Threat To Chinese Stocks: Shadow Lending Crackdown“, we suggested that the pressure on Chinese equities – which at that point had only begun to build – was at least partially attributable to an unwind in the country’s CNY1 trillion backdoor margin lending edifice. As we explained, brokerages were only…
The market is filled with companies with a lot of hype which are touted as great investments, but Benjamin Graham taught that intelligent investors must look past the hype and avoid speculating about a company’s future. By using the ModernGraham Valuation Model, I’ve selected five of the most overvalued companies reviewed by ModernGraham. Each company has been…
The Euorzone leadership remains uneasy with the third bailout of Greece. This unease can be seen in the recent delay to the start of the negotiations, with the Troika staff in Athens siting “technical reasons”. The actual reason has to do with the fact that Greece’s creditors have yet to reach an agreement among themselves….
The solar industry continues to shine both domestically and globally, despite falling prices for traditional fossil fuels. Utah-based Vivint Solar, Inc. (VSLR) has grown quickly over the last few years and is now one of the largest U.S. residential solar installation companies. It has around 523 megawatts of contracted rooftop solar assets built or under development. Vivint went public…
The ongoing Greek drama – it has been downgraded from a full-blown crisis – came about when the opposition refused to support the government’s nominee for president for the third time, triggering a general election in January which was won by Syriza, at the head of a “radical coalition of the left”. They didn’t exactly…
It has been one month since Greek capital controls were imposed, and as we explained earlier, Greece is nowhere closer to having its deposit limits lifted. In fact, with several more months of capital controls at least, the Greek banks are likely to suffer ongoing balance sheet impairments which will ultimately result in depositor bail-ins,…
The US Durable Goods Orders number will take focus during the session on Monday, and therefore we feel that most of the trading opportunities will be in the United States and of course, in the US dollar. That being said, we look at the charts from that perspective. NASDAQ finds support yet again The NASDAQ…
There was no doubt as to the nature of Friday’s action. A weak, end-of-week close adds to the negative tone, suggesting the damage is more long term. However, not all indices are in true bearish mode. The S&P is stuck inside its range, and won’t be challenging range lows until 2,045 comes into play. The…
