Author Archives: Darren Marchal

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Shares of Puma Biotechnology (PBYI) are down 19% after the company reported mediocre breast cancer results from a poster set to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology — ASCO –meeting being held May 29 to June 2, 2015 in Chicago. Puma’s drug known as Neratinib is in a phase 3 trial treating…

Are American Manufacturers Reshoring?

Are American companies reshoring after years of sending production offshore? It’s not that simple, according to Wharton professor Morris Cohen, “Is the Reshoring of U.S. Manufacturing a Myth?” Cohen confirms some of the points I made last year in Reshoring or Offshoring: U.S. Manufacturing Forecast 2015-2016. The interview is worth watching in its 24-minute entirety for…

3 Things: The Labor Hoarding Effect

The Claims Problem This morning initial jobless claims plunged to the lowest level in the last 42 years. The chart below shows the weekly claims as compared to the 4-week moving average.   Surely, this must be a sign that the economy has turned the proverbial corner as full-employment has finally been obtained. Right? Maybe…

EC Bond Math A

What are you expecting from the bond portion of your portfolio over the next six years? 5%? 6%? 7%? These would all have been reasonable expectations in the past, but past is not prologue, especially when it comes to investing. Whatever number you were thinking of, it is likely too high. Why? The largest Bond…

Bund “Stable” As Put-Call Ratio Collapses To 6-Month

Bund yields rose once again overnight, testing last week’s melt-up 77bps top briefly but have ‘stabilized’ as US markets come online hovering 1bps lower. As bund prices have collapsed so it appears knife-catchers have been busily leveraging up with Call option open interest soaring dramatically (and put option open interest). This has smashed the put-call ratio…

Gold Investment Demand Grows In Q1 2015

The World Gold Council (WGC) released its Gold Demand Trends report for the first quarter of 2015. The WGC considers 2014 a year of stabilization for the gold market, and the the first quarter of the year saw this trend continue. The supply-demand picture for gold remained relatively unchanged. However, looking to the rest of 2015, the…