Category Archive: Finance, No picture
US August Auto Sales Encouraging: ETF & Stocks In Focus
Though the U.S. auto industry is facing tough times given higher interest rates, rising vehicle prices and the threat of tariffs on auto imports, it has shown resiliency. Auto sales in August are expected to rise 1.2% and 0.8%, respectively, per Edmunds.com and Cox Automotive. Attractive Labor Day discounts and a booming economy buoyed by […]
Bullseye!
According to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the U.S. economy is doing just fine. And, because of fiscal stimulus, slowly rising incomes, and high levels of consumer and business confidence, Powell believes the current strength will persist. That’s some of what Powell said during his speech at the recent gathering of global economic and financial eggheads in Jackson Hole, […]
The Three Largest Cryptocurrencies – Wednesday, Sept. 5
With so much focus on bitcoin lately, we’ve added a new weekly update that tracks the three largest cryptocurrencies by market share: bitcoin, Ether, and Ripple. According to Wikipedia, a cryptocurrency is “a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional […]
Beijing’s Three Options: Unemployment, Debt, Or Wealth Transfers
China’s debt problems have emerged so much more rapidly and severely this year than in the past that, combined with swirling rumors about the country’s leadership, a growing number of analysts believe that this may be the year that China’s economy breaks. As always, I am agnostic. There is no question that China will have […]
USD/CNH Stays Elevated As Markets Await Next Shots In Trade War
The China-US trade war is set to deepen later this week when the public comment period for the US tariff proposal ends on Thursday, September 6. The US has already imposed tariffs on $52 billion worth of Chinese imports, and the new measures would place tariffs on essentially half of all Chinese imports into the […]
Amazon Hits Trillion Dollar Market Cap: ETFs To Buy
Amazon (AMZN – Free Report) is now the second U.S. trillion-dollar company, trailing Apple (AAPL – Free Report), which crossed the threshold on Aug 2. Shares of AMZN jumped as much as $2,050.50 per share on the first day of trading in September, lifting the market cap of the e-commerce powerhouse to more than $1 trillion. The recent rally […]
Regression To Trend: Another Look At Long-Term Market Performance – Wednesday, Sept. 5
Quick take: At the end of August the inflation-adjusted S&P 500 index price was 121% above its long-term trend, up from 116% the previous month. About the only certainty in the stock market is that, over the long haul, over performance turns into underperformance and vice versa. Is there a pattern to this movement? Let’s apply […]
Big Tech’s Three Identical Strangers
The U.S. government must determine how to deal with the negative consequences of some of the last decade’s most successful internet-based businesses. Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon grew up as strangers and have developed monopolies in search, social media and in e-commerce. The stock market has been very excited about the control over people they have […]
More Dominos
You get the impression often that these guys have no idea what drives the dollar. They cling to all sorts of theories, of course, from interest rate differentials to perceptions of economic strength. That seemed to be the case in 2017 and its “weak dollar” environment. Globally synchronized growth would mean potency pretty much everywhere, […]
Trade Deficit Jumps 9.5% To 5-Month High: Exports Down, Imports Up
Trump is sure to be howling of the latest trade report. The deficit widened 9.5% to a 5-month high. China led the way. The Census Bureau’s International Trade Report shows the goods and services deficit was $50.1 billion in July, up $4.3 billion from $45.7 billion in June, revised. Exports, Imports, Balance July exports were $211.1 billion, […]
