by Mark Thornton, Ludwig von Mises Institute Jim Grant recently appeared on Yahoo Finance. He was critical of central bankers and economists who fear deflation and argue for unorthodox monetary policy to present deflation. He says that deflation is natural in a modern economy and that falling prices should not be feared and should be…
As the S&P 500 pushes towards Goldman Sachs’ 2,100 year end target (for 2015!!) today, we thought it worth considering just how much awesomeness has been pulled forward, priced-in, exuberantly-chased. As the following charts show, based on bottom-up long-term-growth expectations, S&P forward P/E valuations have never been higher. But that’s not all… The current Forward P/E…
Rumors hinting at the takeover of U.K.-based Smith & Nephew plc (SNN –Snapshot Report) by its U.S. rival Stryker Corporation (SYK – Analyst Report), dating back to May 2014, resurfaced this week. According to a latest Bloomberg report, a Stryker move for Smith & Nephew could come in as early as the next few weeks. The renewed takeover speculation brought an early…
Sometimes we forget the basics. In our video series, there’s a lesson called “The Secret to Consistent 20-40% Annual Returns on Stocks” and I hope you’ve seen it. While the low implied volatility of the market has made it a rough year for option selling, we were still able to scratch out just under 30%…
There is no question that falling oil prices are good for a USA-style consumer-driven economy. Falling oil prices put more money into the hands of the consumer — and it is appearing the consumer is now spending more in this holiday season. Already, falling oil prices are migrating into the supply chain reducing costs of…
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Over the years, we’ve heard of dozens of different investment theories and systems. From what we can tell, almost all of them work – sometimes. When you are investing in a market in which stock prices have gone up 17 times (judged by the Dow) over the last 32 years, almost any approach should have…
2014 has been the best year for M&A since the financial crisis, but we think 2015 could be even better. The market is flush with easy financing and cheap debt which has large companies looking to acquisitions for growth. Here are our top candidates to be bought out in this new year. There’s a perfect…
The biotech sector experienced a big shock on Monday, December 22, just one trading day after new record intraday and closing highs had been reached by the four most-heavily-traded biotech ETFs: the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology Index ETF (IBB), the SPDR S&P Biotech Index ETF (XBI), the Market Vectors Biotech ETF (BBH) and the First Trust…
China took 60.657 tonnes of gold through the Shanghai Gold Exchange in the week ending December 19th.
