Three weeks on from the shocking terrorist attacks in Paris, the French capital is again taking worldwide center stage. The world’s preeminent scientists, climatologists, academics, energy experts, and philanthropists, among others, are in the midst of the two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference – the biggest one ever held on global climate change. In the past,…
This is one of those stories that gets more amazing the further you dig into it. Seems that while Chicago descends into a very public, front page news bankruptcy, Kentucky is, dollar for dollar, screwing up even more badly: “(From Kentucky.com) – The $16 billion Kentucky Retirement Systems on Thursday lowered the rate of investment return it…
The US Cash Deficit for November 2015 ended up at $93B for the month on $221B of revenues and $314B of outlays. This, plus a ~+20B adjustment of YTD deficit due to true up the end of “Extraordinary Measures” (EM) brings the 2015 deficit to $535B through 11 months. This adjustment is due to the…
I’m seeing continued positive signs for the market from the Twitter stream. First, is that daily momentum and sentiment for the S&P 500 Index (SPX) is showing mostly positive prints again. This is the first time that it’s happened since the beginning of July (just before the August collapse). If the trend continues as the…
Just like that, Pfizer (PFE) has decided it’s no longer American. It plans to link up with Ireland’s Allergan (AGN) and move its corporate headquarters from New York to Ireland. That way it will pay less tax. Ireland’s tax rate is less than half that of United States. Ian Read, Pfizer’s chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal the…
Market Overview The week of Thanksgiving, during which stocks traded in a narrow range, must have been the calm before the storm for the stock market. Shortly after Wednesday’s opening, the SPX started a two-day decline of sixty points which ended abruptly at the close of Thursday and was followed by a forty-four point rally…
Short interest in Walt Disney shares remains very high despite having declined considerably over the past one month. A lot of the shorts are counting on ESPN to continue underperforming. Should investors jump into the bandwagon or is it easier to long the shares? Since June this year, Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) has consistently ranked among the five…
Chairperson Yellen offered her assessment of the US economy in a speech to Economic Club of Washington. First, the good news. Growth, while moderate, is still positive, printing at 2%-2.5% for the first three quarters of 2015. And real final domestic purchases were over 3% in the 3Q. This tells us that consumers continue to spend and…
Switzerland has completely capitulated surrendering its historic safe-haven status to the entire world. Switzerland was born from a tax revolt against the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria. The tax collector made William Tell shoot an apple off his son’s head with an arrow. Switzerland began as a tax rebellion. It then remained neutral in war and…
EUR/USD The EUR/USD pair had a very strong week as we crashed into the bottom of the uptrend line from the previous ascending triangle. After all, you have to keep in mind that the European Central Bank disappointed the market as far as its amount of stimulus, so therefore the Euro suddenly had been oversold….
