A huge chunk of your tax dollars every year goes straight into the pockets of crooks. Nearly one in three earned income credits (EIC) is fraudulent. And the numbers keep getting bigger every year according to the Government Accountability Office. Please consider GAO: Feds Made Nearly $1 Trillion in Overpayments Since Fiscal 2003. Government waste took…
The American labor market created 142K jobs in September. Weaker than the 200K the market expected, although an improvement from the downwardly-revised 136K in August. No one generally remembers more than 7 things at once, so here’s a summary the American labor market in 7 charts. Labor Market – #1 Monthly Job Growth First, on a…
On Monday, the Nasdaq Composite Index produced a “death cross” chart pattern. A death cross forms on a stock chart when its 50-day moving average crosses below its 200-day moving average. The Nasdaq cross follows death crosses in the other major U.S. stock indices – the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA),…
Insider buying increased last week with insiders buying $226.99 million of stock compared to $45.88 million in the week prior. Selling also increased with insiders selling $594.85 million of stock last week compared to $442.94 million in the week prior. A large part of the insider buying this week was on account of Carl Icahn purchasing a large position in liquefied…
The US Daily Cash Surplus for Wednesday September 30 was $20.6B bringing the September full month surplus to $65B, a $2B improvement over 2014’s $63B surplus. Revenue: Revenues were surprisingly strong…despite being flat up through 9/29…a surge of excise taxes and perhaps most surprisingly $8.3B of GSE dividends. GSE dividends of course represent…
It was early August, 2015 and Disney (DIS) had just created a ruckus by addressing “cord-cutting” and admitting softer than expected results at ESPN. Cord-cutting is the practice of cancelling subscription or pay-tv services like cable TV in favor of cheaper alternatives (including not watching TV at all). There is also growing interest in “never cords” – people…
Once again the reactions of desperate government policies looks like creating an even worse situation thanks to unintended (though entirely foreseeable) consequences. Amid the prospect of sharply higher shipping taxes in Greece – designed to increase revenues and ‘fix’ the debt-ridden nation, WSJ reports many of Greece’s world-leading shipowners are actively exploring options to leave their home country. With…
The Greek leftist Syriza party had a convincing win in September’s elections. Now, its leader Alexis Tsipras must start implementing the European Union (EU)-imposed austerity program. By appointing a pro-bailout cabinet, Tsipras showed that he intends to at least attempt to comply with the bailout’s conditions. Tsipras has retained the team that negotiated the latest bailout, including…
Equity bears are on the prowl all over the globe. Well, swooning international equities, especially the vulnerable emerging markets and persistently weak developed economies may well explain why bears are flexing muscles beyond the border. But the otherwise steadier U.S. economy has also not been spared. If we go by the recent comments from billionaire…
On September 29, the price of platinum fell below $900 an ounce for the first time since January 2009. The precious metal also reached its widest price discount to gold, according to Barclays, in over 25 years at $224 an ounce. The reason for the fall is simple: the Volkswagen (VLKAY) diesel engine scandal. You see,…
