Author Archive: Jeremy Parkinson
Weekly Heating Oil Prices – Wednesday, March 21
We’ve used data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which publishes price data weekly on home heating oil in 38 states by dollar-per-gallon before taxes. Unlike natural gas and electricity, home heating oil is provided by independent retailers. The latest price of home heating oil nationwide is $3.06, unchanged from last week and up 40 cents since […]
Dollar Dives On Reluctant Dot-Plot Upgrade
The Federal Reserve raised rates as expected but left the interest rate forecast for 2018 at three hikes. The Fed did upgrade the forecast for 2019, 2020, and the long-term, but the moves are limited. The US Dollar does not like this cautious approach and drops across the board. The FOMC decided to raise the interest rate […]
Gold Spikes As Hawkish Powell Sends Dollar, Bond Yields, & Stocks Lower
And it’s gone… The biggest post-Powell winner was gold… Stocks drifted higher ahead of The Fed, but Powell’s initial hawkish tone sent stocks lower – into the red for the day initially – but the machines quickly bid the dip… However, that did not hold… Bloomberg’s Andrew Cinko points out a potentially bearish […]
Dot Plot Fantasyland Projections
The Economic projections made at today’s FOMC meeting are straight from Fantasyland. 4.75%-5.00% Interest Rates in 2020? That’s what one economic clown believes. Did anyone bother to calculate interest on the national debt at even 4.00%? Judging from the dot plot, it appears the Fed is thinking about a recession or a perfect landing sometime […]
Is Record Business Optimism A Contrarian Indicator?
The purpose of this article is to objectively examine regulations and the impact on the economy. While there will be discussion of government policy, our review is not negatively nor positively inclined towards any particular administration. Many in the United States are in favor of increased regulations, however, the unintended consequences of these laws aren’t […]
There’s An ETF For That
Blackrock (iShares) had a wide-ranging blog post that included how to reposition in what it believes is a change in volatility regimes. The big idea is that last year’s extremely low volatility readings were, of course, going to end at some point and that the return to a higher volatility regime, whether that meant a “return to […]
FOMC Statement March 21, 2018
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January indicates that the labor market has continued to strengthen and that economic activity has been rising at a moderate rate. Job gains have been strong in recent months, and the unemployment rate has stayed low. Recent data suggest that growth rates of household spending […]
The Media Strikes Back Against Facebook
Facebook Continues Its Decline Facebook stock was down 2.6% on Tuesday as the headlines about the Cambridge Analytica story swirled. I have a new perspective on the story which I don’t think others have covered. This situation is all about stakeholders in the company. Facebook will have an extremely tough time satisfying stakeholders because almost […]
EC The S&P 500 And Stephen Hawking: A Theory On “Peak Everything”
The NASDAQ served up an annualized return of 66% in its final two years of dot-com mania. Only after the balloon had burst did people begin to question the lunacy of paying 10x revenue for the privilege of being a shareholder. Ironically enough, since early 2016, the top 10 growth names in tech collectively produced […]
Fed Signals 2 More Hikes In 2018: Dot Plot, Projections, Statement, Analysis
Ok, here comes the main event. There’s been so much written about this over the past two weeks that it would be impossible to try and summarize it (some recent posts here and here and here), but the bottom line is that all eyes are first and foremost on the median 2018 dot (four or three?). Then there’s the growth […]
