Category Archive: Finance
Russia Continues To Buy Gold As China Could Cause A Shake-Up This Year
After a two month pause, the Russian Central Bank has once again increased its gold holdings in March by 1 million ounces to a new total of 39.81 million ounces of gold. This is remarkable as most market spectators expected the Russians would almost be done with buying gold as its total amount of foreign […]
Retail Sales Continue To Slow In April 2015. Inflation Adjusted Sales Are OK
Retail sales were unchanged according to US Census headline data and was below expectations. We see a continued slowing of retail sales. Consider that the headline data is not inflation adjusted and prices are currently deflating making the data better than it seems (but still not excellent and still decelerating). Overall the rolling averages are […]
Rackspace Hosting Inc. Shares Fall 14% Following Lackluster Q2 Guidance
Cloud computing company Rackspace Hosting Inc. (NYSE: RAX) announced its first quarter earnings report on Monday, May 11, which consequently sent shares down 14% in after-hours trading on Monday evening. Highlights from the report include $0.20 earnings per share and $480 million in revenue, up from $0.18 earnings per share and 14.1% in revenue from the […]
U.S. Retail Sales, Flat In April, Dip Below 1% YoY Change
Consumer spending was unchanged in April vs. the previous month, according to this morning’s release of the government’s retail sales report. Last month’s flat performance follows a strong rise of 1.1% in March, which suggests that a degree of payback may explain April’s lackluster results. Even so, it’s hard to overlook the deceleration in growth in the […]
Will We Hold It Wednesday – S&P 2,100 Edition (Again)
Now this is getting interesting. As you can see from Dave Fry’s S&P chart, we are really close to failing the bottom of that wedge we’ve been testing since March and the 5th time may be a charm – as that’s how many times we’ve tested 2,100 in the last 30 days. Of course, […]
Obamacare Caused The Gas Tax Cut To Go Up In Flames
Wall Street analysts unanimously cheered last fall when the price of oil fell from nearly $100 a barrel in June of 2014, to almost $45 a barrel by the end of January 2015. The theory was that the average American family, paying less at the pump, would plow this savings into other goods and services, […]
Macy’s, Inc. Stock Slips After Earnings Disappoint
Macy’s (M) released the earnings results from its first fiscal quarter before opening bell this morning, posting earnings of 56 cents per share on sales of $6.23 billion, a 0.7% year over year decline. Analysts had been looking for earnings of 62 cents per share and revenue of $6.32 billion. In the same quarter last […]
April Retail Sales: The Spring Rebound Goes Missing
The Advance Retail Sales Report released this morning shows that sales in April came in flat month-over-month, a situation that was enabled by an upward March revision from 0.9% to 1.1%. Core Retail Sales (ex Autos) came in at a disappointing 0.1%, with the March number tweaked upward from 0.4% to 0.7%. Today’s numbers came in below […]
Negative Duration Bond ETFs – Right Time To Bet?
With increasing energy prices, growing inflationary expectations and an improving job market, the Treasury yields have been on the rise yet again in recent weeks. Yields on 10-year Treasury notes (TNX) saw a sudden and sharp jump from $1.890 on April 16 to near $2.35 as of today – the highest level in more than […]
Yearning For Yen
Feel like a really contrarian play? How about going long the Japanese Yen? Yes, the idea of buying the rapidly-expanding currency of a country already one quadrillion yen in debt seems lunatic, but relative to the US dollar, I think the Yen might be in for a surprising rally. The FXY is one way I know of owning the currency. Looking at the […]
