The US dollar is on its back foot. It was already sporting a softer bias and the FOMC minutes were read with a dovish twist. A Wall Street Journal poll found 64% of economists expect a hike in December, and while the minutes might not substantively change that, the confidence is weak. While most Fed…
Aside from the market talk and very real view that declining confidence in centrally planned policy is key to coming market events, this post is for fun. Jeez, lighten up. I know some readers just adore centralized policy making and interest rate manipulation, but the Fed has proven already that it does more harm than…
December E-mini S&Ps (ESZ15 +0.12%) are up +0.11% at a 3-week high and European stocks are up +1.27%. Global stocks rose after Thursday’s FOMC minutes from the Sep 16-17 meeting showed the Fed was reluctant to raise interest rates until it could gauge the extent of a China-led economic slowdown. That undercut the dollar which…
Shares of Ruby Tuesday, Inc. (RT – Snapshot Report) slumped more than 7% in the aftermarket hours yesterday as the company recently reported disappointing first-quarter fiscal 2016 results. The company’s earnings and revenues both slid from the year-ago quarter. Earnings and Revenue Discussion This restaurant operator posted a loss of 3 cents per share, which…
(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are occasionally posted on…
Do Low Interest Rates Help the Economy? Larry Parks has recently interviewed Keith Weiner, the CEO of Monetary Metals and president of the US Gold Standard Institute in Phoenix, AZ. A video of the interview can be seen below. Topics covered include: • What isn’t the problem with the Fed and the dollar? • Forget…
Proponents of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement assert it will open new markets for U.S. goods and services, and help the American worker. We conclude the opposite: It’s a bad deal for America and should be rejected by Congress. This deal benefits multinational corporations producing in Asia, and clearly helps the Asian workers at the…
October continues to utterly stink for me because of the one-two punch of (a) strong equities and (b) strong commodities. I’m far from giving up hope, however, because the individual equity charts look as good as they ever did, and as prices have ascended, the quantity of sensible opportunities has expanded, since the risk/reward ratio…
EU Session Bullet Report Yesterday was a day wrapped around FED Minutes. For the USD, the markets perceived the FOMC minutes down as an indication of further delay in raising interest rates. The committee cited global economic developments are likely to put downward pressure on inflation in the near term. All in all, the minutes…
Income-seeking investors are often tempted by junk bonds – especially if they use a broker who actively markets them. With prices down this year – the Barclays U.S. Corporate High-Yield Index is down 2.7% for 2015 – it may look like time to step into this pool. Unfortunately, the risk-reward dynamic is strongly biased against the retail…
