The race to declare dominance over a particular segment of the market is one that fund companies dream about. They work hard to conjugate unique strategies that stand above plain vanilla indexes in the hopes that their secret sauce adds a measure of value. While this year found many fundamental or “smart beta” ETFs at parity with…
Add these factors up and we conclude there is no visible price limit on oil after supply falters. I’ve been discussing the concept of an Oil Head-Fake since 2008, most recently in The Oil Head-Fake: The Illusion that Lower Oil Prices Are Positive (September 29, 2014) Oil: One Last Head-Fake? (May 9, 2008) The basic idea is straightforward: as global demand…
Russia finds itself in a double bind. It is subject to a number of sanctions from the European Union, USA and other trading partners over what they perceive to be undue involvement in the affairs of another sovereign state, Ukraine. For its part, Russia denies that it is involved in assisting Ukrainian rebels who wish to break…
CytRx Corporation (NASDAQ: CYTR), announced that the Company has received written notice from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that its clinical trials for aldoxorubicin have been placed on partial clinical hold. The news supplements and is consistent with the prior verbal communications from the FDA. As previously announced, all currently enrolled patients…
Wage Inflation “Remained Subdued” Why does the stock market care about wages? If our paychecks get bigger, we have more money to spend. If we have more money to spend, that adds to demand pressure in the supply-and-demand balance. Increasing demand for goods and services can lead to higher prices for those good and services….
The Upside of Error and Misfortune We are here in Lower Manhattan. It does not seem much like an “urban jungle.” It is too cold and rainy. After a brief excursion outside, you have to warm yourself by an artificial fire, with a coffee. Or, after 7 p.m., with a glass of Jameson. Then the…
Biogen Idec (BIIB) reported on December 2, 2014 that it had achieved positive results in an early study in patients with Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is a brain deterioration in mental status that progressively gets worse over time. Alzheimer’s affects memory, behavior, and thinking which can severely impact a patient’s life. Biogen Idec had started a study…
If the good Doctor does not do at the noted support level, it is going to die below it… or at least target 1.50/lb.
The final month of the year is upon us and many ETF investors are likely considering making changes to their holdings as a result of annual rebalancing, required minimum distributions, or a change in their investment profile. These rituals can be an important step in ensuring you stay within your asset allocation targets and give…
Could rapidly falling oil prices trigger a nightmare scenario for the commodity derivatives market? The big Wall Street banks did not expect plunging home prices to cause a mortgage-backed securities implosion back in 2008, and their models did not anticipate a decline in the price of oil by more than 40 dollars in less than…
