Week 47 of 2015 shows same week total rail traffic (from same week one year ago) declined according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR) traffic data. Intermodal traffic contracted year-over-year, which accounts for approximately half of movements and weekly railcar counts continued in contraction. The 52 week rolling average contraction is continuing to grow. Rail counts…
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.” Émile Zola The above quote was on the header of this blog the other day. I mentioned that gold…
Initial Reaction Following last month’s payroll surge comes a second strong month. The Bloomberg Consensus estimate was 190,000 jobs and the headline total was 211,000. The unemployment rate was steady to 5.0%, the lowest since April 2008. A rate hike in December is now assured. BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance Nonfarm Payroll: +211,000 – Establishment Survey…
The one and only sector I’ve been beating the bull drum has been precious metals miners. It’s nice to see them finally getting on their feet……
Gilead’s GILD Sovaldi/Harvoni HCV regimen has been saving lives and that’s a good thing. After Senator Bernie Sanders’ HCV rant in March over veterans’ inability to afford the drug, Gilead’s pricing has been in the spotlight. Recent findings from the Wyden-Grassley report will likely keep Gilead in the spotlight. Senator Wyden (Oregon) and Senator Grassley’s…
As we enter the final month of the year, stocks (as measured by the S&P 500) have made little progress for the year. Unfortunately, many hedge and mutual funds are lagging well behind on a year-to-date basis which is putting pressure on them to chase performance. With the Federal Reserve now set to tighten monetary policy for…
Memorandum To: Yahoo’s Board of Directors Hello there, board people. I noticed some recent news articles about how your board is considering some serious pruning at Yahoo. I’ll offer a brief outline of what I think you should do before shopping around to some private equity firms. I am available to discuss this plan over lunch…
Private payrolls in November increased by a solid 197,000 (seasonally adjusted) last month, according to this morning’s release from the US Labor Department. Although that’s well below the previous month’s upwardly revised gain of 304,000, today’s update is probably strong enough to give the green light to the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates later this…
With just over an hour until OPEC’s press conference, details are leaking: OPEC SETS TARGET AT 31.5 M B/D AFTER INDONESIA JOINS: DELEGATE OPEC HAS AGREED TO OIL OUTPUT POLICY ROLLOVER OPEC agreed to set a new oil-output ceiling of 31.5 million barrels a day, according to a delegate with knowledge of the decision. The increase is…
Another HUGE winner! That’s $5,500 in two days using the Futures Trade Ideas we published right here in our morning post on Wednesday and Thursday. Of course, if we don’t let you know how our prior trades went, then the new trades will seem like random picks and, without context, they would be difficult to understand. The same…
