The Third Estimate for Q4 GDP, to one decimal, came in at 1.4 percent, up from the 1.0 percent for the Advance Estimate. Today’s number was better than most mainstream estimates, with both Investing.com and Briefing.com forecasting 0.8 percent forecasting unchanged at 1.0. Here is an excerpt from the Bureau of Economic Analysis news release: Real gross domestic product…
Week 11 of 2016 shows same week total rail traffic (from same week one year ago) declined according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR) traffic data. All rolling averages are negative and in decline. The deceleration in the rail rolling averages began one year ago, and now rail movements are being compared against weaker 2015 data….
In the recent past, there has been lot of discussion on where the Chinese economy is headed and on the country’s banking sector health. The Credit-to-GDP gap is a good early indicator of stress in the banking system and it indeed shows that there are big reasons to be concerned about China’s banking system. In…
S&P 500 The S&P 500 initially fell during the day on Thursday, but found more than enough support near the 2020 level to turn things around and form a bit of a hammer. That being the case, the market then looks as if we are ready to go much higher, perhaps reaching for the 2060…
Introduction In recent years, dividends’ contribution to total return has been one of the most heavily-studied topics in the investment world. Several conclusions about the contribution that dividends make to total return have been claimed. However, these conclusions vary greatly. I have seen studies claiming that 90% of returns are attributed to dividends, several claiming…
U.S. equities investors haven’t been able to make much headway in their investments over the last year or so, with the last three months being especially tumultuous, but is that going to change anytime soon? Deutsche Bank strategists say this stretch during which U.S. equities have remained range-bound has been “unusually long” for any growth asset…
Investing In Infant’s And Children’s Clothing Dividend Stocks With baby DivHut being born last March I seem to have taken an interest in featuring his own dividend growth portfolio along with other baby related posts this month. Last week I wrote a blog post describing various dividend paying baby formula stocks that exist and now I’d like to do an overview,…
The holiday shutters most markets today. Several Asian markets were open, and equities were narrowly mixed, with Japan and China posting small gains. Most of the other local markets, including Australia, Korea and Taiwan slipped. The US dollar is trading with a firmer bias, but mostly, as one would expect, within yesterday’s ranges. Three observations are…
The most important fundamental driver of the gold market that hasn’t yet begun to move in a gold-bullish direction is the US yield curve, represented on the following chart by the 10yr-2yr yield spread. The yield curve is bullish for gold when it is getting steeper, as indicated by a rising 10yr-2yr yield spread (a…
