When it comes to the favorable aspects of capitalism, one thing is clear: with the largest concentration of millionaires and billionaires from around the globe, the US is second to none when it comes to letting the entrepreneurial spirit flourish and rewarding it (and letting the rich get even richer). Unfortunately, when it comes to…
United Technologies Corporation (UTX – Analyst Report) reported second quarter 2015 net income of $1,542 million or $1.73 per share, down from $1,680 million or $1.84 in the year-ago quarter. The decrease in earnings was driven by a decline in revenues. Excluding one-time items, recurring earnings for the quarter were $1.81 per share, down 2% year over year,…
Jason Zweig’s latest post is titled Let’s Be Honest About Gold: It’s A Pet Rock and attempts to debunk most of the reasons people own gold but oddly skips over the one I believe to be most important and is still wholly intact. First up is criticism that gold has not been able to go up in…
Stocks, bond yields, and the Dollar suddenly started dropping right as The Fed unveiled its revisions for industrial production and capacity utilization. Already at weak levels, both were revised notably lower, slowing the market’s rate-hike expectations and stalling any hope that the recovery is gathering pace. Judging by the chart below, the June payrolls report was…
Fund holdings affect fund performance more than fees or past performance. A cheap fund is not necessarily a good fund. A fund that has done well in the past is not likely to do well in the future (e.g. 5-star kiss of death and active management has long history of underperformance). Yet, traditional fund research focuses only…
As we await the Semiconductor Equipment sector’s Book-to-Bill data for June, we observe that Semiconductor sector leadership (SOX-SPX) is still intact in the US stock market. This sector is noteworthy because it was a real indicator in early 2013 of the general strength to come in manufacturing (Semi Equipment cycles often do that) and…
Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) shares dropped -4.70% in early morning trading on July 21 after UBS analyst Colin Langan downgraded TSLA to a Sell and cut his price target from $220 to $210. Langan rocked the market’s confidence in the electric vehicle giant by arguing that the company will soon shrink out of its current share price….
Greece has committed to more austerity and arduous reforms to keep the euro, but success requires equally significant but unlikely changes from Germany. Since 2010, Greek taxes are up and government spending is down a combined 20 percent. As freshman macroeconomics would predict, that pushed down GDP by more than 25 percent and raised Greece’s…
Investors’ speculation is growing once again, with expectations high that the United States Federal Reserve Bank is moving closer to hiking interest rates. James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis branch of the Fed, said yesterday that the Fed might even consider a September rate increase. That helped to push the US Dollar broadly…
Investors’ speculation is growing once again, with expectations high that the United States Federal Reserve Bank is moving closer to hiking interest rates. James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis branch of the Fed, said yesterday that the Fed might even consider a September rate increase. That helped to push the US Dollar broadly…
