Finance

Amazon Waves Goodbye To United States

    Amazon (AMZN) has had enough of the United States. Specifically, it’s had enough of the country’s strict, stifling regulations (no surprise there) on unmanned vehicles – a.k.a. drones. As you may know, a year ago, the company announced its plan to launch Amazon Prime Air – an ambitious drone-based delivery service that would fly…

The Black Sheep

Someone in comments pointed out (BABA), so I checked it out. Yeah, it’s acting awfully weird. For a triple-digit stock, it’s stuck, day after day, in a tiny price range. Word on the street that options on BABA are one of the hottest things going. Lots of smoke; not much fire.  

EC HH

First, let me say what you read here is going to be wrong in several ways.  HFT covers such a wide path of trading that different parties participate or are impacted in different ways. I wanted to put this out there as a starting point. Hopefully the comments will help further educate us all. 1….

The Truth Of Russian Gold Holdings

If you follow precious metals news, you might have seen a recent article reporting that Russia sold a big chunk of its gold reserves. The article has since been corrected, but it just goes to show how sloppy Western journalism can be, especially when it comes to the reality of physical gold investment. Laurynas Vegys…

Aluminum Gains Popularity In Auto Industry

Low oil prices are igniting vehicle sales. And those old, American favorites – sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks – are becoming popular again.  Increased sale have, in turn, spurred greater demand of certain metals. I already covered the movement of palladium and platinum in catalytic converters.  Now it looks like another metal is going to…

Media Reports It Wrong Again – Housing Starts Actually Plunged In...

Don’t believe everything you read in the mainstream media. Especially don’t believe anything in the financial news media until you’ve looked at the data yourself.  It’s no wonder investors are so often caught flatfooted in the markets. Financial “journalists” feed their readers and viewers a constant stream of misinformation and bad data. Financial reporters are so atrocious…

Is The Weak Housing Market A Warning Sign For The US Economy?

Today’s US economic releases – housing starts and business survey data for the manufacturing sector – suggest that the macro headwinds are increasing. It’s premature to dismiss the numbers du jour, but the previously released reports in recent weeks – payrolls, retail sales, and industrial production – offer a sharply positive counterpoint. For the moment,…