by Erik McCurdy, Prometheus Market Insight The negative economic impact of excessive debt on the US economy has been carefully researched and studied for many years. In 2009, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff published their seminal analysis of the excessive debt phenomenon, This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, demonstrating clearly that, once the…
Expect the political rhetoric and unsupportable statements to increase as we continue in this USA Presidential election cycle. The USA economy sucks (my technical word), and every Presidential candidate has the solution. But here is the problem – economics has a lot of theories but is void of real scientific proof any theory will work…
The people of Greece are facing further years of economic hardship following a Eurozone agreement over the terms of a third bailout. The deal included more tax rises and spending cuts, despite the Syriza government coming to power promising to end what it described as the “humiliation and pain” of austerity. With the country having already…
We evaluated 29 different companies this week to determine whether they are suitable for Defensive Investors, those unwilling to do substantial research, or Enterprising Investors, those who are willing to do such research. We also put each company through the ModernGraham valuation model based on Benjamin Graham’s value investing formulas in order to determine an intrinsic…
The Chart of the Day belongs to Horizon Pharma (NASDAQ:HZNP). I found the pharmaceutical preparations stock by using Barchart to sort today’s All Time High list for the stocks with the highest Weighted Alpha then used the Flipchart feature to review the charts. Since the Trend Spotter signaled a by on 3/30 the stock gained 42.83%. Horizon Pharma plc is a…
The big banks had an easier run this earnings season, with a combination of fewer litigation charges, tighter cost controls and modest improvement in core businesses giving earnings a boost despite constrained revenues as a result of the tough interest rate backdrop. But the going is a lot tougher outside of the Finance sector. The…
Kevin O’Leary, of Shark Tank fame, has morphed into of the most polarizing investment figures on reality TV. Now he is taking his talents off-camera by releasing his first U.S.-listed exchange-traded fund focused on dividend paying stocks. The O’Shares FTSE US Quality Dividend ETF (OUSA) debuted this week to a great deal of intrigue by the financial media. Whether…
Capital spending by American business has been slack for nearly a year, but will grow in the coming months. Orders for non-defense capital goods (excluding aircraft) have actually declined since last August. GDP data suggests slow spending growth for business equipment and software. Nonetheless, there’s good reason for optimism. Capacity utilization in manufacturing fell in…
Two months ago, I did a piece called A Fascinating Ratio, which suggested that a major reversal was coming once the ratio reached about 2.0. At the time I did the post in mid-May, the ratio was a little under 1.8, but thanks to the unflagging strength of equities, as well as the unwavering suckiness…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended last week on July 10 with a close of 17,760.41, down just 0.4% year-to-date and 3.2% below its all-time intraday high of 18,351.36 set on May 19. The Dow 30 is below its 50-day simple moving average of 17,970 and volatility since June 29 the index has traded back…
