Francesca’s Holdings Corporation (FRAN – Snapshot Report) has a new CEO but comparable-store-sales continue to slide. Can this Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) retailer turn it around? Francesca’s Holdings is a specialty woman’s retailer, operating 538 boutiques in 47 states and the District of Columbia carrying apparel, shoes, jewelry and accessories. It also operates an ecommerce site on…
Here are my forecasts for upcoming economic data.
Apparently taking a page out of China’s book, Factually reports the Philadelphia Federal Reserve office (apparently aware of the worthlessness of their fiat currency) sends old currency to local power plants, where it’s burned for electricity. As WSJ reports, The Fed destroys more than 5,000 tons of U.S. currency a year – most of it once went to landfills, but…
Spain’s regional and local governments are struggling to pay back debts. The central government has not made much progress either. El Economista reports 72% of Treasury Issuance in 2015 to Refinance CCAA and Municipalities. Of estimated €55 billion debt increase for 2015, 72 percent of that amount will be to regional governments and municipalities through new…
Louis Gave is one of my favorite investment and economic thinkers, besides being a good friend and an all-around fun guy. When he and his father Charles and the well-known European journalist Anatole Kaletsky decided to form Gavekal some 15 years ago, Louis moved to Hong Kong, as they felt that Asia and especially China…
Louis Gave is one of my favorite investment and economic thinkers, besides being a good friend and an all-around fun guy. When he and his father Charles and the well-known European journalist Anatole Kaletsky decided to form Gavekal some 15 years ago, Louis moved to Hong Kong, as they felt that Asia and especially China…
United Parcel Service (UPS) expects to handle four million returns the first full week of January, up 15% from two years ago. As online sales continue to grow, returns “represent a larger percentage of overall sales.” As WSJ reports, more than 20% of returns happen during the holiday season – representing $60 billion in merchandise….
Quantitative Forecast Academic studies have shown that the most reliable way to determine future price movements from past price movements, is by use of momentum. In the Forex market, a momentum study is best applied to the four major Forex currency pairs by simply checking whether the weekly close is above or below the weekly…
A few weeks ago I offered some calculations suggesting that lower demand for oil might account for about $20/barrel of the dramatic decline in the price of oil since last summer. Here I point to some other evidence consistent with that conclusion. Last week the IMF’s Rabah Arezki and Olivier Blanchard produced a very useful assessment of…
Dividend stocks have gained popularity and have been on the rise this year on investors’ drive for higher income in the current ultra-low rate environment. Additionally, the dividend paying securities are the major sources of consistent income for investors when returns from equity market are at risk. While the broad U.S. equity market have hit…
