Stocks Fall On Friday Led By The Financials It’s worth a mention that the Syrian air strikes that were feared by the stock market earlier this week were announced by President Trump on Friday afternoon. This could send stocks down on Monday. Geopolitical events are always difficult to determine as speculation swirls. I think the best approach is to be…
Following three monthly declines, retail sales rose 0.6 percent in March. Auto sales helped drive a rebound retail sales in March, but the overall rise is moderate. The Wall Street Journal reports Retail Sales Growth Sluggish Despite Higher Employment, Fatter Paychecks. Spending at U.S. retailers bounced back in March, but the broader trend in consumer spending…
U.S. retail sales may have been the most important event risk on today’s calendar but President Trump’s tweet about China and Russia playing the currency devaluation game puts tensions between the world’s 2 largest economies back into central focus. The Australian dollar is highly sensitive to any pressure on China. The Chinese have been…
Escaping volatility by sidelining cash pays nothing. Instead, investors can sit in a high-yielding stock with great expectations while the market makes up its mind. A stock screen for 10%+ upside, 5%+ dividend yield, and positive free cash flow returned 13 stocks. Five stocks were selected for further comparison, representing Energy, Telecom, Real Estate, and…
In our previous take on the US dollar in early February, we wrote that the currency was set to remain weak. At the time, ex-US growth was accelerating, while speculator sentiment was only mildly bearish. While dollar bulls have argued that rate hikes should help the currency, we wrote that expectations for monetary tightening were rising…
While it may seem like a lifetime ago, it was only in late January that the market was melting up relentlessly with every trading day, as volatility crashed lower and lower to unsustainable single digit levels, sending the S&P into a buying frenzy. It was, as Morgan Stanley pointed out at the time, “euphoria.” Of…
US DOLLAR KICKS OFF THE WEEK BY RUNNING BACK TO SUPPORT Last week saw near-term Dollar weakness continue after the disappointing NFP report from the Friday before. DXY made a late-week attempt to re-test the 90.00 level, but even that fell flat as sellers came in ahead of that potential resistance. As we open up a fresh week,…
Something strange started happening at the beginning of 2018. For the first time in a long time, investors started asking us what we thought about commodities. For the past several years, any time we talked about commodities, it felt like we were banging our heads against a wall. Investors were disinterested, and who could blame…
The Census Bureau’s Advance Retail Sales Report for March was released this morning. Headline sales came in at 0.6% month-over-month to one decimal and was above the Investing.com consensus of 0.4%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at 0.2% MoM. January and February figures were revised. Here is the introduction from today’s report: Advance estimates of U.S….
Back in the olden days prior to 2008, it used to be against the rules to convert funds directly from a 401(k) plan (or other CODA plan, like a 403(b)) to a Roth IRA. At that time, you were required to do the “conversion two-step” wherein you would first rollover or direct-transfer your funds from…
