Preferred Stocks: Performance, Volatility And Risk-Adjusted Returns
Public market investors generally invest in two types of securities: common stocks and bonds. Common stocks represent ownership in the underlying company, accompanied by voting rights for issues of corporate importance. Bonds are debt instruments with a fixed coupon payment and predetermined maturity date. Companies issue bonds when they need to raise capital but do not wish to dilute their […]
EUR/USD At 5-month High Despite Real Results Showing Le Pen Leading
Votes are being counted in France and they show extreme-right candidate Le Pen is leading with over 25%, with Macron behind with 21%. This is the opposite of the exit polls, which put Macron on top. Update After counting 20 million votes, Le Pen still leads but the gap is smaller: 24.4% against Macron with 22.2%. Fillon is third with […]
Euro Bund Market Observations
Let’s start off with some observations for the Euro Bund. Looking at the plain weekly chart, we can identify a break of the one-time-framing higher behavior which occurred for several weeks now. The market took out the previous week’s high and low (I will call it an outside week) with the result of a possible […]
Venezuela On The Verge Of Revolution As Hyperinflated Currency Crashes To New Record Low
Venezuela, a country with only $10 billion left in reserves to run on, is in trouble. As the currency hyperinflates to new record lows against the dollar James Holbrooks points out that the people are starving. The government has gone full-on authoritarian, and now desperate human beings are dying in the streets. From an Associated Press report on Friday: “Authorities in Venezuela say 12 people […]
Beware Of Fake Stock News In The Financial Markets
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is taking legal action against 27 individuals and several companies over hundreds of fake “impartial” blog posts that appeared on well-known financial websites. In many cases- about 250 articles- the bloggers were secretly paid to write bullish articles to promote mainly small biotech stocks such as Lion Biopharma […]
Managing The Chaos – Investing Vs. Gambling
How does one invest amid the slew of palm sweating, teeth grinding headlines of Syria, North Korea, Brexit, expanding populism, Trumpcare, French candidate Marine Le Pen and a potential government shutdown? Facing a persistent mountain of worries can seem daunting to many. With so many seemingly uncontrollable factors impacting short-term interest rates, foreign exchange rates, […]
US Dollar Bracing For French Election, Trump Tax Plan, GDP Data
Fundamental Forecast for the US Dollar: Neutral US Dollar focused on 1Q GDP data amid slowdown fears Risk-positive French election outcome to boost greenback Tax reform bill to put “Trump trade” back in the spotlight The US Dollar fell for a second consecutive week as the Fed rate hike outlook continued to deteriorate. Geopolitical jitters are almost certainly […]
Wall Street And Bear Scat
As seen in the Bear’s Eye View (BEV) chart below, the last all-time high for the Dow Jones happened on March 1. Since then however, it’s been slowly deflating. The post-election run up in the Dow Jones (enclosed in the Red Circle) was an excellent advance; one of the best in the post March 2009 […]
Target2 And Secret Bailouts: Will Germany Be Forced Into A Fiscal Union With Rest Of Eurozone?
Project Syndicate writer, Hans-Werner Sinn, explains why the ECB’s asset purchases and Target2 imbalances constitute “Europe’s Secret Bailout”. Under the ECB’s QE program, which started in March 2015, eurozone members’ central banks buy private market securities for €1.74 trillion ($1.84 trillion), with more than €1.4 trillion to be used to purchase their own countries’ government […]
GBP/USD Forecast April 24-28
GBP/USD enjoyed its strongest weekly gain in 2017, gaining 270 points. The pair closed the week at the 1.28 level. This week’s key event is Preliminary GDP. Here is an outlook for the highlights of this week and an updated technical analysis for GBP/USD. The pound jumped sharply as Prime Minister May shocked the markets by calling a […]
