Here are some things I think I am thinking about: 1) Why does the world hate Martin Shkreli? Christmas came a few days early for the 90% of the world that completely despises Martin Shkreli, the hedge fund manager and pharma CEO who allegedly ripped off investors. An interesting discussion has surrounded the hatred of Shkreli….
On May 1, 2003 on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln then President George W. Bush, after becoming the first U.S. president to land on an aircraft carrier in a fixed wing aircraft (in a dashing olive drab flight suit), declared underneath an enormous “Mission Accomplished” banner that “major combat operations” in Iraq had been…
The Current Account Balance came in worse than expected due in part to the stronger dollar, which like rate increases is one of the lesser things one might prescribe for a shallow and fragile recovery. If there is to be a late year push higher next week is when it must begin to at least…
In my post this morning on Yield Curve and Spreads: Fed’s Real Policy Error in Pictures; What’s Next? there were two important points I intended to make but didn’t. First here’s a repeat of two charts. Yield Curve 1998-2015 (Year-End Values) Values for 2015 are from the December 16 close, the day the Fed hiked….
If you always overestimate, and don’t change, what does that imply? Since the FOMC started providing their estimates on economic aggregates four years ago, I’ve been simplifying them, and posted a weighted average to cut through the clutter of their releases. From the graph, you can see one thing that is consistent: They overestimate GDP….
At the last reading, the gold and silver CoT had improved again. Gold was already ridiculous, but silver, which had been middling, really took a positive move. Here are the raw data…
The chart of my core market health indicators says it all. Weak economy and every other category near zero. This week my measures of trend fell into negative territory, while the other categories are barely hanging on. It appears that the 2020 area on the S&P 500 Index (SPX) is a tipping point. The market…
Winter’s coming. OK, not really. Winter’s already here. But, for the investing world, things are starting to get a lot more chilly and scary. The storm clouds are rolling in. After seven years of holding short-term interest rates at roughly 0%, with no hikes for nearly a decade, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank has officially…
Canadian announcements During the session on Friday, there are various Canadian announcements, and as far as we are concerned we believe that this market will be fairly quiet. However, there should be a couple of short-term trades available during the day today. Canadian dollar continues to get pummeled the At this point in time, it’s…
US stocks soared while the Fed was meeting to raise interest rates this week — though it’s not clear why that should be so since monetary tightening isn’t generally a good thing for stock prices. In any event, it didn’t last. Over the past 48 hours the Dow is down more than 3%, with many,…
