How can we estimate the separate economic effects of shocks to oil supply and demand? I’ve just finished a research paper with Notre Dame Professor Christiane Baumeister that develops a new approach to this question. The basic reason the question is hard to answer is that we would need to know the value of two key parameters: the response…
Do you see what happens Larry when Wal-mart succumbs to “progressive” pressure and hikes minimum wage? This: WMT CFO: NEW HIRES TO START AT $10 PER HOUR NEXT YEAR WMT CFO: 2017 RISE IN WAGES TO COST $1.5B WMT PLANS REDUCTION IN CAPITAL EXPENDITURES THROUGH FY19 WAL-MART SEES FY2017 EPS DECREASING 6-12% VS FY2016 Yes,…
Martin Wolf in Thursday’s Financial Times discusses the reasons for low interest rates and suggests some interesting scenarios for the years ahead. I agree with most of what he says but I have doubts about the role that he assigns to central banks. Let me start with the arguments with which I agree 100%. The logic of…
Well, was the bearish engulfing candle a one day wonder? Was it too perfect with respect to its predecessor in August? Did every genius who can look at a chart see it and act upon it? Well, this genius took a loss on his hedge but also took more miner profits to stay balanced. That is because…
Canada’s national election is slated for Monday. The latest opinion polls show a virtual dead heat between the governing Conservatives and Liberals. Two main issues dominate. The first is the economy. Canada is struggling. Although the contraction period is over, growth is fragile. The economy contracted for the first five months of the year. Unemployment…
Retail sales came as expected in today’s release, but up only 0.1%. And last month was revised lower, from a 0.2% gain down to 0.0%. Once again autos were the strong point. Looking on the bright side, as is typically the case, Bloomberg Econoday explains it like this. Weakness at gasoline stations, where low prices are depressing…
Econintersect‘s analysis of final business sales data (retail plus wholesale plus manufacturing) shows unadjusted sales declined compared to the previous month – but there was an improvement of the rolling averages. With inflation adjustments, business sales are in contraction. The inventory-to-sales ratios remain at recessionary levels. Econintersect Analysis: unadjusted sales rate of growth decelerated 0.7 % month-over-month,…
AAPL shares are down 1.75% this morning – the biggest loss since September – sending the “no brainer” stock price back into the red for 2015. Having been unable to break resistance at the 50-day moving average, and with AAPL back under $110, we are sure investors will be “swapping” their stock certificates for iPens. …
Today’s retail sales report for September offers more evidence that consumer spending is plodding along at a sluggish pace. The appetite for consumption has clearly downshifted in recent months, but it’s not obvious that spending is falling off a cliff into a recessionary hole when we look at the annual comparison. Headline retail sales increased 0.1% in…
Large pharmaceutical companies are often on the lookout for small strategic acquisitions of companies that have a promising pipeline candidate in their portfolio. Sometimes, acquiring a company with a promising early-stage candidate makes sense instead of developing a product from scratch, which involves a lot of time. Swiss oncology major Roche (RHHBY – Analyst Report)…
