by Michael Haltman The price of crude oil is currently one of the big news stories that both financial market AND geopolitical analysts are paying close attention to! Where is the bottom in the price of crude oil, when will it arrive, what message is the sharp and steep decline telling us and what if any impact…
Quantitative Forecast Academic studies have shown that the most reliable way to determine future price movements from past price movements, is by use of momentum. In the Forex market, a momentum study is best applied to the four major Forex currency pairs by simply checking whether the weekly close is above or below the weekly close 13 weeks…
Conventional wisdom would say that everyone in the oil patch is taking a mighty beating right now. But some are hurting much more than others… Indeed, while oil company shares have been plummeting, the eventual consequences of this engineered collapse will come home to roost at the doorstep of the perpetrators: OPEC. The…
One of the conventionally accepted reasons for the unprecedented hedge fund underperformance in 2014 was that the vast majority of the “smart money” left 2013 and entered 2014, just as the 10Y looked set to decisively break out above 3%, long equities, expressed primarily via the Nikkei which went nowhere for most of the year until in November…
After six years of a mostly uninterrupted bull market, some would say that U.S. stocks are currently priced to deliver lackluster returns in the times ahead. However, equities have been displaying solid fundamentals backed by a strongly rebounding economy, which may point to a good year for stocks in 2015. Last year was marked by…
Last week’s wild trading defied any simple explanation. That always sets the table for pundit pontification! We are still a week away from earnings season. Bond, stock and commodity prices are moving in different directions. I expect this divergence to be a focus of attention, with many asking: Is the Bond Market Sending a Message about…
The Euro has not had the strongest of starts to 2015 with the currency falling from 1.2088 to the Dollar to stand at 1.1815 having been as low as 1.1763 on Thursday. There appear to be two or three reasons underlying the current weakness of the single currency. The specter of fresh Greek crisis is now center…
Hemisphere Energy Corp. (HME.V) drills for liquid oil in Canada. They are fortunate that Canada is such a friendly place for extractive enterprise. Canada remains favorably ranked in both the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (10th out of 175) and the Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom (6th out of 178). Their CEO is a geologist, which I like to…
Just when I thought I had finally gotten out they pull me back in. Matt Yglesias, Tyler Cowen, and Kevin Drum have noticed that US GDP growth picked up exactly when US austerity stopped (as I noted here). The pattern is so strong that it looks similar even though Yglesias, Drum and I graph different variables. I just…
Taking a fundamental approach to investment is not easy. It requires quite a lot of investigative work, number crunching, and the application of careful judgment. For many young analysts the process can feel overwhelming and it’s hard to know where to start. After 10 years of doing fundamental analysis, I thought it would be…
