“The one thing I know for sure about China is, I will never know China. It’s too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There’s simply not enough time.” – Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown Much of the world is focused on what is happening in Greece and Europe. A lot of people are paying attention…
Back in April, we highlighted Beijing’s “massive debt problem”, noting that as of last year, total debt in China amounted to some $28 trillion when you include government debt, corporate debt, and household borrowing. As Bloomberg noted at the time – and as we’ve discussed extensively – Beijing is facing the virtually impossible task of…
The Chinese stock market recently saw its biggest selloff in 8 years as the dramatic 8.5% fall in Shanghai. “A” shares also rattled markets around the world. For the past few weeks China has been balancing its desire to keep the equity market from a complete meltdown, while still courting the international investment community with…
Exxon Mobil continues to slide on the back of slumping oil prices. The company’s Q2 2015 earnings weren’t exactly what investors were looking for. Revenue came in at $74.1 billion, a big beat on the Wall Street consensus by $1.62 billion, but it’s still down 33.4% year over year. The big whiff was its miss on earnings….
“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood, The Busy-Body, and Early Writings I start with that quote because once the media, as well as politicians for that matter, have no accountability for actions or words then liberty will dissolve. Over the last…
For the past few years we’ve been following a couple of transportation metrics: Vehicle Miles Traveled and Gasoline Volume Sales. For both series we focus on the population adjusted data. Let’s now do something similar with the Light Vehicle Sales report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This data series stretches back to January 1976. Since that first data…
Australians driving the market It isn’t very often that we can see the Australians may be front and center, but quite frankly with the RBA announcing an interest rate statement, it’s more than likely going to be looked at with great interest as they have a keen insight as the things going on in Asia….
Chinese stocks are opening flat to marginally higher – still lower from Friday’s close – despite the government unleashing yet more ‘measures’ in the name of stability. Having banned 5 accounts – reportedly including Fed-favorite Citadel – China is blaming excess market volatility on short-term short-sellers and has put in place curbs on short-selling that…
Precious metals showed bullish technical signs in early 2015, including gold making a higher low at $1,141 versus the November 2014 low of $1,130. However, in late May gold failed to make a higher high, which was a pivot point and signal that lower prices could be ahead. This bearish signal was confirmed on July…
The month of August sure has started off with a bang. Tech stocks are crashing, oil is crashing, industrial commodities are crashing, Greek stocks crashed the moment that the Greek stock market reopened for trading, and Chinese stocks continue to crash. At this point we have not seen a broad crash of U.S. stocks yet,…
