E At The Centre Of The Inflation Debate: Slow Wage Growth Explained
At the heart of setting monetary policy is the debate as to why wage growth has been so slow. Central bankers have been struggling with hitting their inflation targets. They constantly point to their disappointment that wages continue to stagnate, despite significant improvements in the unemployment rates. Without a steady upward movement in wages, it […]
BMO Argues For Biogen As Most Logical Takeover Target For Pfizer
Commenting on “significant market speculation” that Pfizer (PFE) is preparing to execute a large M&A deal, BMO Capital analyst Alex Arfaei argued that he sees a strong strategic rationale for a merger with Biogen (BIIB). The analyst sees a deal for Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) as unlikely given the uncertainty associated with the latter’s pipeline. PFIZER/BIOGEN […]
Hollowed-Out Blue Chips Are The Next Subprime
Subprime mortgages caused much of the 2008 financial crisis by defaulting in much greater concentrations than the experts expected. The next financial crisis is likely to be caused by a similar disaster that surprises the experts. I have an excellent candidate: Fortune 500 companies that have been repurchasing their shares like maniacs for a decade, […]
Silver Sign’s Confirmation & More
Briefly: In our opinion, full (150% of the regular full position) speculative short positions in gold, silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective at the moment of publishing this alert. In our previous free analysis we discussed the silver market viewed from the non-USD perspective and we commented on the possibility of seeing a more […]
32 Firms Going Ex-Dividend This Week, Including Target, Aflac And Anheuser-Busch
There are several well known large cap stocks going ex-dividend next week including the following five Top 100 Dividend Stocks: Invesco, Anheuser-Busch, Consolidated Edison, Kroger and Target. Ex-dividend dates are important to dividend investors because one must own a stock on its ex-dividend date in order to be eligible to receive its next dividend. Any stock ranked by our […]
This Week Is An Important One For Tax Reform
Tax Plan To Be Worked Out This Week Last Thursday the Senate released its plan to cut taxes which sent the market falling because the tax cuts start in 2019. The Senate’s amendment process starts on Monday. That’s when the details will be hashed out. We will probably see the market move on headlines regarding the debate. […]
GPIF Is About To Bite Back
A few years ago, the Japanese government made an announcement that went unnoticed by many market pundits. Since then, although there have been a few strategists who have speculated on its impact on risk assets, on the whole, it’s not something that gets a tremendous amount of attention. And that’s a mistake because it has […]
There Is No ‘Value’ Here, So Just Stop It
Sometimes I think common sense is something that no one uses when it comes to analyzing markets, making capital allocation decisions, and/or penning market commentary. There’s a demonstrable tendency for people to get lost in the data or else find themselves blinded by the proverbial light, whether “light” is too much goal seeking on the […]
When The Next Crude Bear Market Strikes, Blame America
Crude oil remains in a bull market for one primary reason: demand growth continues to run ahead of supply growth. Looking over the longer term, crude oil prices have reacted sharply each time supply growth has moved above or below demand growth. The commodity cratered after the second quarter of 2014 once supply growth sharply […]
The Intractable Irish Question
There are three issues that the EU insists are addressed before formal discussions about the post-Brexit UK-EU relationship. These are EU citizens’ rights in the UK, the British financial commitment, and the North Ireland border with the Republic of Ireland. Progress has been reported on the EU citizens’ rights, and speculation suggests that UK Prime Minister May is prepared to shortly (within […]
