The S&P 500 large cap index is testing the lows of February, but VIX acts nowhere near as panicky. This could be a tell for stocks near-term. The ISM manufacturing index dropped 1.5 points month-over-month in March. February’s 60.8 was the highest since 61.4 in May 2004. Manufacturing is strong. It is difficult to imagine…
You may have noticed stocks have stopped going straight up. By itself, that’s not scary. Bull markets and high volatility can coexist, and often did until the last few years. No, the scary part is that bull markets fall apart slowly. Even in 2008, the bull took a long time to collapse. The Bear Stearns collapse…
Stepan Co. (SCL) has a dividend track record that few companies can rival. This year will be Stepan’s 50th consecutive year of increasing dividends, making it one of just 25 companies in the entire market with a dividend increase streak of that length. That puts the company among the elite Dividend Kings, a small group of…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at 26,616 on January 26th. Those highs set the stage for the stock market correction that investors are facing right now. How and Why? We’ve been warning since early this year that stocks were getting ahead of themselves. The chart below illustrates just how far ahead they got… the Dow’s momentum reading this year…
The oil sell-off was just downright crazy. Oil got caught up in trade war fears, tech wreck fears, OPEC/Non-OPEC compliance fears, and a build in Cushing Oklahoma oil stocks as reported by Genscape. Stocks had the worst start in April since 1929, but really the magnitude of this sell-off was a big April’s Fools Day…
Let’s tie two topics we have treated, one in exhaustive depth and the other in an ongoing series. They are bitcoin and capital consumption. By now, everyone knows that the price of bitcoin crashed. Barrels of electrons are being spilled discussing and debating why, and if/when the price will go back to what it ought to be ($1,000,000…
Spotify (SPOT) will begin trading publicly on April 3, but it will not have an IPO. The Swedish streaming service instead plans to do a direct listing of its stock. Employees and investors will be able to sell shares on public markets, but the company itself will not be raising any new capital. The lack…
This article will look at companies reviewed by ModernGraham which have grown their dividends annually for at least the last 20 years.Out of over 900 companies covered by ModernGraham, only 70 have grown dividends annually for at least the last 20 years. Defensive Investors are defined as investors who are not able or willing to…
In a blog post, titled “Tomorrow,” Spotify co-founder, chairman and CEO Daniel Ek writes that he’s proud of what the company has accomplished since its debut in October 2008. “Lots of people have asked me how I feel about tomorrow’s listing. Of course, I am proud of what we’ve built over the last decade. But…
I want to share a recent note from Morgan Stanley with you guys. The note discusses the rise in front end rates and what it means for the relative attractiveness of other assets. I think it’s largely to blame for the repricing of risks we’re seeing in markets right now. And it’s going to be…
