A few months ago, I wrote a bullish article on Ligand (NASDAQ:LGND), with a thesis stating that the company’s outlook should improve with increasing royalty payments and new collaborations using its Captisol technology platform. I also stated that Wall Street is overlooking the fact that Ligand’s partners will spend more than $800 million in R&D in 2014,…
Yves Smith points us to additional 114th Congress changes: How the Republican Campaign to Gut Dodd Frank is a Huge Gimmie to Banks and Private Equity Funds The Republicans have been quick and shameless in using their control of both houses to try to crank up the financial services pork machine into overtime operation. The Democrats…
Another month, another attempt by the BLS to mask the collapse in the US labor force with a goalseeked seasonally-adjusted surge in waiter, bartender and other low-paying jobs. Case in point: after a modest rebound by 0.1% in November, the labor participation rate just slid once more, dropping to 62.7%, or the lowest print since December…
The BLS jobs report headlines from the establishment survey were strong and above expectations. The unadjusted data shows very strong jobs growth. Year-over-year growth rates are improving. The household survey again says something different. Putting this month’s headline establishment numbers into perspective – the monthly private sector growth is lower than last month but above average for…
Here are the lead paragraphs from the Employment Situation Summary released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 252,000 in December, and the unemployment rate declined to 5.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, construction, food services and drinking…
Click on picture to enlarge The past year has been a little bit rough on small caps, as they have underperformed against the SPY by almost 8% over the past 12 months. When looking back over the past few years, small caps haven’t lagged the S&P by that much in the past 5-years. Anything caused…
The US labor market posted another healthy increase last month, the government reports. Private-sector payrolls increased 240,000, a bit more than economists were forecasting (but slightly below The Capital Spectator’s median prediction). Although December’s advance was well below November’s increase (+345,000 for the private sector), today’s release still looks encouraging. Indeed, when you strip out the monthly noise…
Infosys Technologies Ltd (INFY – Analyst Report) reported third-quarter fiscal 2015 earnings per ADS from continuing operations of 46 cents, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 43 cents by 7% and the year-ago earnings of 41 cents by 12.2%. Quarterly results were primarily driven by strong volume growth as well as increased productivity and utilization. Further, the company…
The US grew 252k net jobs in December and the October-November series was revised up by 50k. The participation rate ticked down to match the cyclical low seen last September of 62.7% (from an upwardly revised 62.9% in November). This was behind the decline in the unemployment rate to 5.6%. Hourly earnings was an important…
Student loan debt is developing a deep penetrating consciousness this campaign season than in any other in memory and to that, we’d add that it’s about time. Americans’ outstanding loan debt has reached to an exceedingly high level of more than a trillion dollars this May, according to recent statistics provided by the Consumer Financial…
