The textbook says that whenever the central bank raises its policy rate that means tightening. Actual experience over more than just this last lost decade demonstrates that at the very least it is much more complicated than that. There is far more evidence of monetary policy being nothing more than a response, as that reverse condition can […]

Last week two of my favorite data points came out: Payrolls & Trade. Payrolls were a huge miss. Expectations were for 180,000+, but came in almost 50% lower (at 98,000). Automatic Data Processing (ADP) – a global leader in payroll processing – predicted 263,000.  (This is a huge egg on their face. And it should tell […]

Goldman Sachs’ Charlie Himmelberg and Marty Young find evidence that “animal spirits” are driving sentiment along party lines… and that may be a concern… Sentiment indicators have rallied hard since the election of Donald Trump. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index, for example, has risen to its highest level since December 2000 (+24.8 points from October). The […]

This week on the Estimize Roundtable, Estimize’s CEO, Leigh Drogen and SVP of Media, Christine Short, are joined by guests Jeff Macke of Macke Asset Management and Sean Udall, the CIO at Quantum Trading Strategies. With the Q1 Earnings season officially underway, we asked our guests to provide their picks for biggest expected surprises both […]

Lam Research Corporation (NASDAQ:LRCX) Tuesday posted market-beating fiscal third quarter earnings results and offered a bullish forecast for the current period… Written by StockNews.com The Fremont, CA-based semiconductor equipment maker reported: Q3 earnings per share (EPS) of $2.80, which was $0.25 better than the Wall Street consensus estimate of $2.55. Revenues surged 63.9% from last […]