Testing Asset Allocation Results With Random Market Selection
Skill is a slippery concept in finance, courtesy of the shady influence of chance in asset pricing. It’s also an awkward topic in just about every corner of money management because discussing it in detail invariably raises serious doubts about our ability to engineer investment results that are satisfactory much less stellar. But ignored or […]
DAX 30 Halts Its Decline, But Strong Gains Are Also Absent
The DAX 30 (FXCM: GER30) is little changed at the time of writing. The biggest drag to the index is from car-makers, who are part of the Consumer Discretionary Sector which is currently lower by 1.27% in today’s session. The Health Care Sector, up by 0.74%, is the current winner. The DAX 30 index itself […]
E The Daily Shot And Data – April 7, 2016
Greetings, We begin with the energy markets where the Energy Information Administration (EIA) confirmed yesterday’s API report showing a larger than expected draw on US crude oil inventory. NYMEX crude oil rallied 5% during the day in response and is up another 1% in the after-hours trading (boosting global equity markets). The fact that the […]
How Much Of S&P Earnings Growth Comes From Buybacks
Having pounded the table on buybacks as the only marginal source of stock purchasing since some time in 2013, we were delighted one month ago when Bloomberg finally got it, writing an article titled “There’s Only One Buyer Keeping S&P 500’s Bull Market Alive.” The answer: corporate stock repurchases of course. This is what it […]
EUR/USD Bounces At Critical Resistance Ahead Of Draghi And Yellen
The dollar weakened before and after the Fed minutes, which were not too hawkish to say the least. While the big winner is the unstoppable Japanese yen, the focus now shifts to EUR/USD. An attempt to break above 1.1460 failed in the first attempt, and now the pair faces both Draghi and his colleagues as […]
European Markets Close Higher On Oil And Strong China Data
On Wednesday European markets closed higher as oil saw a nice rebound, and strong data from China brought risky assets back in play. The pan-European STOXX 600 index, which tracks all sized companies across 18 countries in Europe, closed higher by 0.7%. The same can be said about all the indices in the European […]
Best Performing Currency ETFs Of Q1
Although the dollar ruled in 2015, it lost steam as it entered 2016. PowerShares DB US Dollar Bullish ETF (UUP – ETF report), which tracks the performance of the U.S. dollar against a basket of other currencies, lost about 4.4% in the first quarter of 2016. The latest blow to the dollar came in […]
FTSE 100 Maintains Gains Following Rise In Risk Appetite
The FTSE 100 (FXCM: UK100) rose by 1.02% from yesterday’s low to close at 6185 on crude oil prices trading higher. The weekly DOE U.S. Crude Oil Inventories report showed stockpiles declined by 4.9 million barrels vs. an expected build of 2.8 million (Bloomberg survey), which in turn has sent crude oil prices higher. The […]
Yen Continues To Climb
The main feature in the foreign exchange market continues to be the surge of the Japanese yen. A convincing explanation of the yen’s strength seems elusive. Until last week, which means through the fiscal year-end last month, Japanese fund managers have been buying foreign bonds at a near-record pace. Foreign investors, for their part, have […]
McDonalds Responds To Minimum Wage Hikes, Launches McCafe Coffee Kiosk
When it comes to jobs growth in the US, all one can say is thank god for waiters and bartenders: after all, a Starbucks barista is precisely what a recently fired oil chemical engineer making half a million dollars really wants to do with their life. However, the days of easy job gains for the […]
