U.S. Business Inventory-Sales Ratio Jumps To Post-Crisis (7 Year) High
Following the recessionary surge in Wholesale Inventories-to-Sales ratio, this morning’s Total Business inventories-to-sales rose to 1.40x – the highest since May 2009. With a 0.4% slump in sales and 0.1% rise in inventories, the smell of recession lays heavy on US businesses… but then again – who cares if Draghi can keep buying ‘assets’ and saving […]
E The Bull Market In Gold Is Only Just Starting
As many of you know, my oldest son, John, is an English teacher at a government university in western China. He is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Russian, Korean, and of course, English. I was Skyping with him the other day, and he mentioned something that piqued my interest. There were lines forming outside the […]
Technically Speaking: The Fed Cometh
In this past weekend’s newsletter, I reviewed the current fundamental, economic and technical backdrop of the market following the March rebound from the recent lows which was front running the ECB’s monetary policy decision. “The question, of course, is whether the ECB’s interventions will be able to change the longer-term dynamics in the Eurozone by creating inflationary […]
If Gold’s A Good Bet…
There are lots of ways to wager. There’s no denying that life has been breathed into the once-moribund gold market. Bullion is up better than 18 percent over the last three months, far and away beating the returns earned by other alternative assets. Mining stocks, however, are outshining gold itself. You can see this vividly […]
January Median Household Income At A Another Post-Recession High
The Sentier Research median household income data for January, released this morning, came in at $57,288. The nominal median rose $130 month-over-month and is up $2,921 year-over-year. That’s an increase of 0.2% MoM and 5.4% YoY. Adjusted for inflation, the latest income was up $115 MoM and $2,191 YoY. The real numbers equate to increases of 0.2% […]
Whole Foods, Kroger Seen Facing More Competition From Cheaper Fresh Market
Several supermarket chains, including Whole Foods (WFM) and Kroger (KR), will encounter tougher competition following Apollo Group’s (APO) acquisition of The Fresh Market (TFM), Wells Fargo predicted. Yesterday morning, Fresh Market, a supermarket chain that specializes in perishable items, agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Apollo Global for $28.50 per share. ANALYST REACTION: […]
Chart Of The Day: Inventory Ratio Rings In The Recession
Do these look like the charts of a “recovering” economy?
Anticipation Of Osborne’s Budget Weighs On Sterling
If UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne wants to position himself to be the next Prime Minister, the budget to be unveiled tomorrow may not be particularly helpful. There is little room to relax fiscal policy, given the self-imposed constraints. The deficit for the current fiscal year was projected to be GBP73.5 bln, but […]
US Housing Starts: February 2016 Preview
Housing starts are expected to total 1.126 million units (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in tomorrow’s February update, according to The Capital Spectator’s average point forecast of several econometric estimates. The projection represents a moderate increase over the previous month’s level of residential construction activity. The Capital Spectator’s average forecast for February is below three estimates […]
E The Daily Shot And Data – March 15, 2016
Let’s start with emerging markets where we want to cover a number of developments. 1. Egypt, running low on dollars, devalued its currency sending the Egyptian pound down some 14% (chart shows the number of pounds one dollar buys). Source: Investing.com 2. India’s CPI seems to have stabilized (below consensus). Given the weakness in the nation’s […]
