The Empire State Manufacturing Survey improved but remains in contraction. Expectations were for a reading between -10.00 to 2.00 (consensus -7.0) versus the -4.6 reported. Any value above zero shows expansion for the New York area manufacturers. New orders and unfilled orders sub-index of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey are in contraction but improved this…
Ring-wall ostrich guidance – is being provided by many on the Street, as far as how they interpret both the High Yield ‘risk’ (of course the keyhole exit really is behind, especially in that investment segment), and as relates to upcoming FOMC decisions and their ‘statement’ following the meeting. Analysts and economists are paraded in media, desperately arguing how most junk…
Rough trading has led to sluggish performances for a number of key investment houses as of late, including Morgan Stanley (MS – Analyst Report). The well-known investment firm has seen its shares tumble by over 7.5% in the past month, while it has plummeted 20% in the past six months as well. But what’s behind this intense…
Austria has started acting on its plan to repatriate a big chunk of its gold reserves. Last week, the Austrian National Bank announced it brought 15 tons of gold back into the country. According to Reuters, a spokesman said the bank began repatriating the gold from London in October: After the repatriation, Austria held roughly 65…
by Doug Short and Steven Hansen According to the BLS, the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) year-over-year inflation rate was 0.5% – almost no inflation. The year-over-year core inflation (excludes energy and food) rate grew 0.1% to 2.0 %, and now is at the target set by the Federal Reserve. Does this green light movement of the federal funds rate by…
Housing starts are expected to rebound to 1.100 million units (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in tomorrow’s November update, according to The Capital Spectator’s average point forecast of several econometric estimates. The projection represents a modest gain over the previous month’s report for residential construction activity. The Capital Spectator’s average forecast is moderately below three estimates…
What a joke this market is becoming! As you can see from Dave Fry’s SPY chart, the S&P finished up 0.5% for the day after an amazing 10-point rally that began the second the European markets closed (11:30). It was incredible – as in NOT in the least bit credible but, as we knew, it would…
Despite already record levels of “long USD”, from Cable to EUR, traders are dumping everything and buying US Dollars, sending the USD Index surging off overnight lows. At the same time, Treasuries are being dumped en masse with the belly of the curve up 15-17bps since Friday. The USD is going vertical… And bonds…
This Great Graphic shows how different measures of US equities perform in December by day for the past 20 years. I got it as a tweet from Urban Carmel, who got it from the Stock Almanac. Today is eleventh session of the month. Equities typically rallied starting now in December. Since 1994, the S&P 500 has fallen in the…
While everybody is speculating on the impact of the Fed rate increase, think about this. The cost of money doesn’t matter. Who cares whether it’s 0.00 or 0.25? Not that a rate increase can be sustained without removing liquidity from the system. We don’t know if the abracadabra method of raising rates will even work. The quantity of money is…
