Economic Data Continues To Point To An Economy That Is Good, Not Great
Domestic and geopolitical politics are seriously heating up; we’ve seen phenomenal bitcoin volatility all while the equity markets continue to grind higher and higher even after the quick pullback in trading today. That slippage reflects not only the delay in the Senate tax reform vote, but also the revelation that former Trump national security adviser […]
Mid-December Cold Supports Natural Gas Prices
Natural gas prices settled up modestly on the day, but seemed to sputter into the weekend as most gains came overnight with prices gradually declining through the day today. Prices seemed to bounce right off the $3.12 resistance level, unable to find much of a sustained footing after 8 AM Eastern. Part of the reason was that […]
Gold Price Outlook Hinges On Senate Tax Plan Vote
Talking Points: Gold price outlook hinges on Senate tax cut vote result Crude oil prices struggle despite output cuts extension Gold prices declined as a swell in risk appetite pushed Treasury bonds lower and sent yields higher alongside share prices. Not surprisingly, that undermined the appeal of non-interest-bearing assets epitomized by the yellow metal. From here, all eyes are […]
The Latte Index: Using The Impartial Bean To Value Currencies
Like any other market, there are many opinions on what a currency ought to be worth relative to others. With certain currencies, that spectrum of opinions is fairly narrow. As an example, for the world’s most traded currency – the U.S. dollar – the majority of opinions currently fall in a range from the dollar […]
E It’s That Time Of Year
It’s forecasting time. Goldman Sachs strategist David Kostin called his 2018 outlook “rational exuberance” and he expects the S&P 500 to reach 2850 by the end of 2018. That’s a 9.5 percent rise from here. The driver will be corporate tax reform, which will generate greater profits. Bank of America/Merrill Lynch expects stocks to rise […]
Light Vehicle Sales Per Capita: The Latest Look At The Long-term Trend
Note: The charts below have been updated to include today’s preliminary report on U.S. Light Vehicle sales from Motor Intelligence. For the past few years, we’ve been following a couple of transportation metrics: Vehicle Miles Traveled and Gasoline Volume Sales. For both series, we focus on the population adjusted data. Let’s now do something similar with the Light Vehicle […]
Blue Apron Downgraded After Management Shake-Up At RBC Capital
As previously reported, RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney downgraded Blue Apron (APRN) to Sector Perform from Outperform after the company announced that co-founder Matt Salzberg will be exiting as CEO and Brad Dickerson will be stepping into that role. Mahaney, who acknowledged he has “been arguably overly patient with the company,” said the management […]
Construction Spending Details: Diving Into The Plusses And Minuses
Construction spending rose 1.4%, led by non-residential construction. Let’s dive into the details. The Census Bureau reported a 1.4 Percent Rise in Construction Spending in October from September. The Econoday consensus only called for a 0.5% rise so let’s start there. It’s not housing that drove construction spending up a very sharp 1.4 percent in October but non-residential activity […]
