Will Menu Change Help McDonald’s?
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE:MCD) continues to affirm its support for kid’s nutrition with the introduction of a fresh whole side option that specifically targets families. Starting this holiday season, kid-sized Sun Pacific Cuties (clementines) will partner McDonald’s lineup for its line of Happy and Mighty Kids Meal’s The new choices will include apple slices and Go-GURT […]
How Big Is Christmas For Retail?
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
Christmas is big, no doubt about it. How big depends on what type of retail. Highest honors for big holiday volume goes to sporting goods, electronics, and clothing, but general merchandise and non-store retailers (like Amazon) are close behind. Lower holiday season sales occur at car dealers, building materials stores and gas stations. The easy […]
Two Notes: Crude Oil & Bonds
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
Photo Credit: [email protected] I’ve been busier than ever of late — not much time to blog. Thus, a few notes: 1) Often the rate of change in a price can tell you something, particularly if the good in question is widely traded/held by a wide number of parties with different interests. In this […]
Home Price Expectations And Residential Investment
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
I have often wondered whether the very low level of Private Residential Investment (also known as building houses) in the USA is due to unusually low expectations of long term increases in home prices. Here, I add that I would guess that the change was and end of the belief that the relative prices of […]
E
Otsuka Acquires Avanir Pharmaceuticals For $3.5 Billion
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
Shares of Avanir Pharmaceuticals (AVNR) popped as much as 12% in pre-market trading today after Otsuka Pharmaceuticals (OTSKF) announced that it will pay $3.5 billion to acquire the company, $17 per share. The boards of both companies have approved the deal and the official tender offer for all outstanding shares will be out within 10 […]
The World’s Largest Stock Market Index Is Flashing Red
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
With a market capitalization of around $16 trillion, the NYSE Composite Index is a massively broad equity indicator less affected by the day to day gyrations of AAPL, TSLA, BABA, or NFLX. As NewEdge’s Brad Wishak remarks, the world’s largest market cap equity index is painting a very different picture than that of the Dow or […]
Technical Tuesday – Big Chart Bonanza
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
Lots of interesting chart levels today: As you can see from our Big Chart, the damage has been done over the past week as the Russell has once again failed at the Must Hold line, as has the NYSE and now we’re watching 17,600 very closely on both the Dow and the Nikkei (which we’re shorting […]
ADP Employment Report: November 2014 Preview
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
Private nonfarm payrolls in the US are projected to increase 227,000 (seasonally adjusted) in tomorrow’s November update of the ADP Employment Report, based on The Capital Spectator’s median point forecast for several econometric estimates. The median projection is marginally below October’s increase. Compared with a pair of consensus estimates based on recent surveys of economists, […]
Yen Weakens On Moody’s Debt Downgrade
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
The difficulties faced by the Japanese government and the Bank of Japan in restoring the economy to full health have not gone unnoticed by the world’s major credit rating agencies with Moody’s recently downgrading the country’s sovereign debt rating from AA3 to A1 and assigning Japanese debt with a “stable” outlook. That led to the […]
Performance Divergence Among Asian ETFs
Dec 02, 2014
Jeremy Parkinson
Entertainment
One of the nice things about ETFs is the broad diversity they offer in terms of exposure to a vast variety of stock sectors within the US — but they also have exposure to a growing number of international countries (and in some cases, multiple choices within a single country or region), commodities, currencies, volatility, […]