Kansas City Fed Survey: Accelerating Activity In August
The Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Survey business conditions indicator measures activity in the following states: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, western Missouri, and northern New Mexico. Quarterly data for this indicator dates back to 1995, but monthly data is only available from 2001. New seasonal adjustment factors were introduced in January 2017 and slight revisions […]
Will The China Shock Operate In Reverse?
Everyone knows that China’s economy has had explosive economic growth in recent decades, with tidal effects through the rest of the global economy. In fact, China’s economy has come so far and so fast that some of the main shocks it has caused in recent decades may be about to move into reverse. At least, […]
Existing Home Sales Unexpectedly Decline To 2017 Lows
On the heels of an unexpected decline in new home sales yesterday, comes news of an unexpected decline in existing home sales today. The Econoday consensus estimate for existing home sales was 5.565 million at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate up from a reported 5.520 million in June. Instead, existing home sales fell 1.3% from a downward […]
Wage Growth And Demographics: One More Time
I messed up earlier this week in discussing the possible impact of demographic changes in the composition of the labor force on the rate of wage growth, but this is an important issue that we should be able to think about clearly. The question is whether the slow pace of wage growth in the last year or […]
Analysts See China Mobile Tender As Beneficial For Optical Names
Yesterday, China Mobile (CHL) announced on its Chinese language website a major coherent transport order of 42K-70K ports. Commenting on the news, Needham analyst Alex Henderson said it may cause “a meaningful change” in the demand trajectory out of China, helping optical names. While his peer at B. Riley acknowledged that the tender could be […]
Stop Losses Are A Must For Retirement Investors
Dad pointed his finger at me, raised his voice and said, “Sit down, shut up, and listen!” His face was beet red; I’d pushed him too far. My parents invested in Certificates of Deposit ONLY – they never touched stocks. I showed dad charts from my economics professor outlining how much more an investor would […]
The Cost Of Market Crash Insurance Just Hit A Record High
With the VIX surging, and then quickly getting pummeled on two occasions in the past three weeks, dizzy traders could be forgiven to assume that any latent “risk off” threat, whether from North Korea or the US political front, has been taken off the table. However, a deeper look inside the vol surface reveals something […]
Revulsion For Banking Conglomerates Generational, For Good Reason
In the 1960’s and 70’s my depression-era grandparents helped raise me. Because of their life experiences in the 1920’s and 30’s they had developed a healthy distrust and aversion to the “God damn bankers” as my grandpa used to say. In my own adult and professional experience over the past 30 years, I came to […]
E Rare Opportunities In Rare Metals
Investors constantly search for the “next big thing”, the next innovation that will disrupt entire industries and make early investors a lot of money. Now that “next big thing” is electric cars and alternative energy. The question is what is the best way to take advantage of the coming boom in these fields. The answer […]
Abercrombie Soars Despite Q2 Loss, Back To Beat Trend
The distressed Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF – Free Report) came up with a solid quarterly performance in a long time as it reported top and bottom-line beat in second-quarter fiscal 2017. Further, the company’s results compared favorably from the prior-year period. Notably, this was the company’s first positive bottom-line surprise in the last six quarters, following in-line results […]
