Mr. Trump tweeted yesterday: Russia and China are playing the Currency Devaluation game as the U.S. keeps raising interest rates. Not acceptable! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 16, 2018 U.S. Treasury reported on Friday: Pursuant to the 2015 Act, Treasury finds that no major trading partner of the United States met all three criteria in the…
Tuesday’s stock picks: Long Caterpillar (CAT) Long Sonic (SONC) Short LPL Financial (LPLA)
Asian share markets are lower today as Japanese and Hong Kong shares fall. The Nikkei 225 is off 0.1% while the Hang Seng is down 0.2%. The Shanghai Composite is trading down by 0.4%. Back home, India share markets opened the day on a flat note. The BSE Sensex is trading higher by 15 points while the NSE Nifty is trading up by 3 points. The BSE…
S&P 500 The S&P 500 rallied significantly during the trading session on Monday, gaining almost a full percent by the time we started to close out the session. The market looks likely to break above the 2680 handle, and that should send the market towards the 2700 level next. Beyond there, the market will go…
The U.S. retail sales grew more than expected in March, making it the first gain in four months and suggested that consumer spending has started regaining steam on the back of tax cuts and refunds. Retail sales surged by 0.6 percent in March, following a 0.1 percent decline in February, the Commerce Department showed on…
Oil prices have had a good week, as increased concerns in the Middle East caused investors to brace for a supply disruption. Although Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed a higher-than-expected weekly increase in crude inventories, the markets shrugged off inventory build fears owing to geopolitical worries. What’s Impacting Prices? Official data from the Energy…
It’s time again for our weekly gasoline update based on data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The price of Regular and Premium were up a nickel each from last week. According to GasBuddy.com, California has the highest average price for Regular at $3.55 and San Francisco, CA is the most expensive city, averaging $3.68. Oklahoma…
Recently I have credited Fed chief Jay Powell for having moved closer to a more rule-based monetary policy and I have expressed the hope that we could be entering a new regime – a Powell Standard. This is probably somewhat overly optimistic, but it mostly reflects the fact that inflation expectations (and our forecasts for US inflation)…
The tech startup boom has been one of the most important and visible economic “growth engines” of the past half-decade. The boom was spurred, in large part, by the success and excitement over Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, and similar companies, which led to a widespread search for the “Next Facebook” or billion dollar “unicorn” company. Unfortunately,…
The prompt month May natural gas contract rose a bit more than half a percent today as the summer contracts caught more of a bid. After gapping up weakly, prompt prices were unable to continue much higher, settling right at the $2.752 level they opened at. Through the day contracts at the front of the…
