The low Australian dollar and ultra-low official interest rates seem to be helping Australia’s economy adjust to the end of the resources boom. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia, these factors are strengthening the labor market and are eliminating any need to cut the benchmark cash rate below 2 percent any time soon. The…
Yahoo Inc (YHOO – Analyst Report) is set to report third quarter results on October 20, so let’s see how things are shaping up this quarter. Major Factors In Play Last quarter, Yahoo managed to exceed top line expectations but fell short on the bottom line. There are a number of factors in play right now that are…
OVERNIGHT MARKETS AND NEWS December E-mini S&Ps (ESZ15 -0.21%) are down -0.31% and European stocks are down -0.85% on reduced chances of additional easing from the ECB after the ECB’s lending survey showed that credit standards on loans to companies eased for the sixth consecutive quarter. Also, weakness is IBM, which is down -4.5% in pre-market trading, is undercutting stocks after it…
Commodities dropped on the back of yesterday’s weak Chinese GDP growth (slowest since the financial crisis) data. Industrial production signals a falling Chinese demand, which contributed to lower oil and gold prices. The US dollar has strengthened somewhat after Fed’s Williams said that he saw the time to start raising rates in the near future….
The on-again-off-again economic recovery is having a tough time convincing the crowd to price in higher US Treasury yields, but maybe political gridlock in Washington can push rates higher. In fact, some of the short maturity Treasuries that are thought to be at risk of not being repaid have endured selling to the point that…
After yesterday’s closing ramp “prudently” just ahead of an abysmal IBM earnings report with the lowest revenues since 2002, and the latest rally in capital markets which sent European stocks to their highest level since August on the back of a barrage of global bad data which has unleashed the Pavlovian liquidity dogs screaming for moar central…
The proverbial peddlers of Florida swampland can now move over. They can’t hold a candle to the red suzerains of Beijing. The latter had drawn a line in the sand at 7.0% GDP growth. Conveniently enough, the “consensus” estimate of so-called street economists was pegged at 6.8% for Q3, thereby giving authorities one thin decimal point through which to thread a “beat” at 6.9%. By golly they did it! Even then, China’s Ministry of…
USD/CAD Currency Pair 1-year chart Little mention is made of Canada in the international press. This never ceases to amaze me, given that Canada is an important player in the global financial markets. It sports a higher GDP per capita than the US and it has a population approximately 10% the size of its southern…
Gold continued to retreat from a three-and-a-half-month high struck last week and extended loses to a third straight session on Monday as the U.S. dollar gained strength on upbeat housing data. The National Association of Home Builders’ sentiment index came in at 64, up from the previous month’s 61 and above expectations for a reading…
Right up until Beijing’s move to devalue the yuan temporarily shifted the market’s focus away from Chinese economic data in favor of the daily RMB fixings, Western investors watched closely every evening for any signs of just how “hard” China’s landing is ultimately shaping up to be. Of course the data point par excellence when…
