Bears paid an early visit to Santa with a broad selling. The relative loss was minor, although volume climbed to register to confirmed distribution. The Nasdaq delivered on the ‘bear flag’ breakdown, which will give shorts something to work with. The index finished on its 20-day MA. but this hasn’t played as support in recent…
We are now far advanced into the third central bank generated bubble of the last two decades, but our monetary politburo has taken no notice whatsoever of its self-evident leading wave. Namely, the massive malinvestments and debt mania in the shale patch. Call them monetary Bourbons. It is no exaggeration to say that inhabitants of the…
The mainstream media exploded with excitement last week as automakers reported their strongest sales since 2003. Was it really all that or does this silver lining have a dark cloud hovering overhead? Here’s what the actual, not seasonally adjusted, November data looks like going back a few years. Auto Sales- Click to enlarge We note…
With oil prices plunging to 5-year lows, perhaps it is time to consider the cheapness of betting on the other oil black swan… Via BofA’s Jake Greenberg, In my base case, I remain structurally bearish oil. The world is making huge productivity and efficiency gains (lighter vehicles, new technology, etc.), and we are starting to…
Precious metals investors have plenty of good options when it comes to choosing a precious metals dealer. So putting up with dealers who either can’t tell you when they expect to deliver, or make commitments they don’t keep, isn’t necessary. In fact, it can be downright dangerous. Just ask the jilted customers of Tulving Company,…
Shares of Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST) rose as much as 35% after Merck (MRK) announced that it would acquire the company for approximately $9.5 billion. This translates to Merck paying $102 per share for Cubist while also covering $1.1B in debt, and will allow Merck to acquire a new set of antibacterial drugs. The deal makes…
Symmetry Medical Inc. (until recently SMA) recently completed the divestiture of its OEM solutions business unit to Tecomet Inc. The deal, announced in Aug 2014, was valued at $450 million in cash after fees and elimination of outstanding debt. Symmetry Medical also completed the transfer of the remaining surgical business to a new company called…
Highlights of the Prior Week Macro The monthly non farms jobs report hit on Friday and was a monster. The report showed 321,000 new jobs with the headline (U3) unemployment rate holding steady at 5.8% while the broader U6 moved down one tick to 11.4%. Oddly the labor force participation rate remained at a 36…
Crude oil has collapsed under $65 to a new five-year low on predictions that oversupply would keep building until 2015. Indeed, we are preparing a special report on Energy. Some people have assumed this is a covert manipulation to bankrupt Russia. This is not true. We are in the last throes of the collapse in…
