Over the past century, value stocks have outperformed both growth stocks and the market as a whole. During the past decade, the value strategy has experienced uncharacteristically low returns causing a significant amount of pain for hedge fund managers and other investors who invest in quantitatively cheap companies. Although it’s tempting to proclaim that this time…
The earnings season, which is nearing its end, has been quite impressive this time around. However, the show is not over yet. With several retail behemoths including Walmart, Macy’s and Target, queued up to report their quarterly numbers, investors are likely to keep their eyes on the Retail-Wholesale sector’s progress card. We note that the sector has…
This morning, Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger upgraded CBS (CBS) to Outperform and said he views the probability of a CBS-Viacom (VIAB) re-merger as close to zero for many years to come. His peer at Citi voiced a similar opinion and dropped his likelihood of a merger to 25% from 50%. This comes a day after…
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) is a gauge of builder opinion on the relative level of current and future single-family home sales. It is a diffusion index, which means that a reading above 50 indicates a favorable outlook on home sales; below 50 indicates a negative outlook. The latest…
Tuesday’s release of the Empire Manufacturing report for the month of May came in better than expected with the headline index rising back up to 20.1 from last month’s level of 15.8. Economists, meanwhile, were looking for a modest decline. You may recall that in last month’s report, we saw expectations for conditions six-months from…
After being rumored and talked about for over a year, at the end of last year the tax cuts were finally delivered. The idea had captured much market attention during that often anxious period of political flirtation. Prices would rise or fall by turn based on whether or not it seemed a realistic possibility. Public…
Is it just me or have there been a whole bunch of really scary sounding stories about rising interest rates in the last few months? While some of these worries are warranted it’s important to pan out and take a more objective view of the environment so we can avoid making excessively short-term judgements about…
Calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”, President Trump declared last Tuesday that the U.S. will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal made under the Obama administration. The United States is now preparing to reinstate all sanctions along with additional economic penalties on Iran. French President Emmanuel Macron,…
Wall Street has been on a roller-coaster ride this year. Yet, the small-cap segment of the broader market has been outperforming, defying extremely volatility. This is especially true as the Russell 2000 is nearing its record levels with just less than 1% away from its peak. Why Small Caps? Global sentiments have been deteriorating due…
BRITISH POUND TALKING POINTS GBP/USD snaps the range from the previous week following a bulk of data coming out of the U.K. & U.S. economy, and fresh rhetoric from Bank of England (BoE) and Federal Reserve officials may largely influence the exchange rate over the coming days as market participants weigh the outlook for monetary policy….
