On Thursday, Portola Pharmaceuticals (PTLA) dropped almost 30% after the company’s Phase III study of extended-duration betrixaban failed to achieve primary endpoint in first cohort. The study was designed to assess the relative risk of the two therapies as measured by a composite endpoint of ultrasound-detected (asymptomatic) proximal deep venous thrombosis (DVT), symptomatic DVT, non-fatal pulmonary…
S&P 500 The S&P 500 fell on Thursday, but bounced off the 2020 handle. However, on Friday we had the Good Friday holiday so of course there was no trading. This is a market that looks like it is ready to continue going higher so we can break above the top the hammer for the…
S&P 500 The S&P 500 fell on Thursday, but bounced off the 2020 handle. However, on Friday we had the Good Friday holiday so of course there was no trading. This is a market that looks like it is ready to continue going higher so we can break above the top the hammer for the…
Amid a post-holiday Asian open, gold futures were flash-crashed as someone decided it was an opportune time to trade over $275 million worth of the precious metal. Since hitting those China open lows at $1206, gold has rallied back to unchanged near $1223…
In a quiet trading session given that many of the globe’s financial markets are closed today, it will likely be data which drives the currency pairs. Ahead today, markets will be anxiously awaiting release of US core inflation data, which is a key piece of information used by the Federal Reserve to determine monetary policy….
It is widely recognized that the sharp depreciation of the Japanese yen has not lifted Japanese export volumes. In December 2015, Japanese export volumes had fallen 4.4% year-over-year after rising 3.9% in December 2014 and 2.5% in December 2013. These are a number of explanations for this counter-intuitive result given the yen’s past depreciation. First, global demand is weak. Second, has…
The data this month showed good income growth with spending growth weak (significant downward revision in last month’s expenditure data). Still year-over-year consumption is growing faster than income. The market looks at current values (not real inflation adjusted) and was expecting (from Bloomberg):. Consensus Range Consensus Actual Personal Income – M/M change -0.1 %…
California governor Jerry Brown has proposed a $15 minimum wage by 2022. If the legislation passes, it will wreak havoc on city budgets, state budgets, businesses, and jobs. Please consider California Moves Toward $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage. Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has told leaders in the Democratic-controlled state Legislature he supports boosting the state’s minimum wage to…
Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. This committee statement is about as close as they get to identifying their method. There is, however, a general belief that there are four big indicators that the committee…
Image via Leo Newball, Jr. ‘California Federal Reserve Bank’ / Flickr The USD/CAD pair moved slightly on Friday, the European session setting the rate in the 1.3230 area. The main reason for this small fluctuation is that the Canadian markets were closed for Good Friday, being no Canadian news releases. From the US side, the…
