The restaurant industry is one that usually garners a great deal of attention from investors, as consumer preferences and eating habits seem to be ever-changing, and so too do the restaurant stock winners and losers. The restaurant category is also considered one of the better industries in the market by Zacks, ranking in the top…
A year ago when Facebook forced its mobile users to download its standalone Messenger app, they weren’t happy. It’s not the first time the social-media giant made major changes to its core product. It’s actually made them regularly since it first launched in 2004. Facebook has been working to make it worth their while, though. Earlier this…
For the second time in two months, an economic data series that indicate drastically weak performance in China has been “suspended.” Having seen Markit/Caixin’s flash gauge of China’s manufacturing discontinued in October (having plunged notably divergently from the government’s official data), Bloomberg reports that the publishers of the alternative China Minxin PMI will stop updating the series to make…
Cyclical stocks tend to be reliable profit generators in a value investor’s portfolio. Cycles exaggerate the valuations because they cause uncertainty in the market. So arguably, value investing should work very well. In practice, it can be hard to identify the right investment candidates and pick the right time to invest. We all know that value investing involves…
The US middle class continues to shrink, squeezed by government policy and an ever-increasing burden of debt. According to a recent Pew Research report, the majority of American adults no longer are part of the middle class. The middle class accounted to 61% of the population in 1971. The most recent figures put the middle class…
Silver prices remained very choppy for the past month which complicates trading. However, when prices finally breach the $13.61 to $14.62 range we can probably enjoy a healthy trend. In the case of a break to $14.62 silver prices may reach $15 and $15.50 with the latter level acting as support during October. If the…
Reshoring Over Before It Ever Got Going Recall the hype over reshoring? Manufacturing jobs supposedly were returning to the US in droves from Asia. My view was that although some manufacturing processes returned, not many jobs came back thanks to robots and software automation. That view was far too optimistic. Reshoring Myth and Reality The…
Mining and equipment behemoth, Caterpillar Inc. (CAT – Analyst Report) reported an 11% decline in its global retail sales for the three months ended Nov 2015. The company, which is considered to be the bellwether of economic activities, is going through a rough patch with sales declining for 36 consecutive months due to a crash in commodity prices, soft…
The EUR/USD pair rallied during the day on Monday, using the 1.08 level as support. We have recently been consolidating between 1.08 level on the bottom, and the 1.1050 level on the top. With that, the market should continue to bounce around in general, offering short-term trading opportunities only. That’s not necessarily out of the…
In September, interbank credit markets flashed a quick and brief warning that something was up… and Janet folded. Three months later and following The Fed’s oddly-timed rate-hike, interbank counterparty risk – as proxied by the TED-Spread – has spiked over 45% in 2 days, the most since Sept 2008 (Lehman). The TED Spread is the difference between…
