Value investing is gaining popularity by the day. The success of value investors like Warren Buffett further underscores this. Buffett believes that proper understanding of the “intrinsic value” of a stock makes the task easier. Yardsticks such as dividend yield, the ratio of price to earnings or to book value are the most common forms…
After clinging to the green all day, despite a strong dollar, WTI/RBOB slipped into the red after API reported a much bigger than expected (and surprise) crude build (+4.854mm vs -1.75mm exp). API Crude +4.845mm (-1.75mm exp) Cushing +62k (+550k exp) Gasoline -3.369mm Distillates -768k After drawing down last week, expectations were for crude draw…
January was the last month in which China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) specifically mentioned Fixed Asset Investment (FAI) of state holding enterprises (or SOE’s). For the month of December 2017, the NBS reported accumulated growth (meaning for all of 2017) in this channel of 10.1%. Through FAI of SOE’s, Chinese authorities in early 2016…
Amid market volatility, the cybersecurity industry is riding high on better-than-expected earnings results, pushing many stocks to multi-year highs. This is especially true as most of the cybersecurity firms beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate on both earnings and revenues and offered robust guidance. Let’s dig into the earnings results of some of the cybersecurity firms…
I know I have told this story before, but it bears repeating. Way back in 2011 I was watching the S&P like a hawk. Trading each squiggle, I tried to understand what was driving the markets at every point. I focused on technical levels, monitored the news and spent way too long staring at the…
Gold prices broke below their March 1 swing low at 1302.68 today, setting up a break to fresh 2018 lows and a break of the symmetrical triangle in place since mid-January all in one fell swoop. Concurrently, the break of the uptrend from the December 2016, July 2017, and March 2018 has now definitely broken…
Note: With the release of April Retail Sales and the Consumer Price Index, we’ve updated this commentary to include the latest Real Retail Sales. 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…
Stocks and the precious metals slumped today as yields on US Treasuries climbed. The ten year Treasury yield finished at the highest level since 2011. This in turn greatly strengthened the US Dollar. Bloomberg characterized this as a ‘risk off’ reaction to something or other that was not clear. North Korea or Jerusalem? The VIX took a…
Today was a pretty interesting one. One bit of bleakness, in spite of the dip on the Dow, was that we’ve got a set of higher highs and higher lows, as I’ve illustrated below with the arrows. I’m hoping this is a one-hit wonder and not a trend change, but – – – them’s the…
