Weighing The Week Ahead: Will The Interest Rate Spike Threaten Stock Prices?
This week’s economic calendar includes the most important housing data, but the market context will prove irresistible to the pundits. Stocks continue at the top of the trading range, and even broke through for a few minutes. Even more interesting is the bond market. Interest rates decisively broke their trading range and also showed a […]
Leading German Keynesian Economist Calls For Cash Ban
It’s official: the world has gone central-planner crazy. Monetary policy, whether in the form of “conventional” methods such as the micromanagement of policy rates or so-called “unconventional” measures such as QE, has proven utterly ineffective when it comes to both “smoothing out” the business cycle and reigniting economic growth in the wake of severe downturns. […]
E InfraREIT – Financial Engineering Continues In The Utility Sector
InfraREIT (HIFR) is the first publicly traded high-voltage electric transmission company wrapped in a REIT structure. Spun off from the Hunt family of companies in January, HIFR is structured more like a MLP than a traditional REIT. InfraREIT is a real estate investment trust REIT. The Company owns state-regulated electric transmission and distribution (T&D) assets, […]
The Stock Market Is The Economy, So…
The Fed’s Industrial Production (IP) Index slowed dramatically in April. It weakened enough to decisively break the uptrend in force since 2011, when the trend growth rate slowed from the bungee rebound of 2010. The Stock Market Is The Economy- Click to enlarge The Fed says that this index measures the output of the nation’s factories, […]
Inside China’s Insane IPO Market: Full Frontal
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: China’s equity mania truly is the gift that keeps on giving, and not just for those who are riding the wave, but also for those who, like us, appreciate the humor in a giant, margin-fueled bubble that’s captivated millions upon millions of semi-literate housewives and banana […]
Week In Review: BeiGene Raises $97 Million For Cancer Drugs
Deals and Financings BeiGene, a Beijing biopharma focused on developing novel targeted and immuno-oncology cancer therapies, completed a $97 million fundraising (see story). Six months ago, BeiGene announced a $75 million Series A financing. BeiGene currently has three small molecule inhibitors in Phase I trials and expects to start a trial of a novel PD-1 […]
Gold Daily And Silver Weekly Charts – Distorted Markets, Financial Sophistry, And Moral Hazard
There was intraday commentary here that included an interesting perspective from the audacious one percent and their enablers. And there was another about the current state of political discussion in Britain, a recent awkwardly stated reflection by the Prime Minister that may have revealed the mindset of their powerful, and its possible relationship with the continuum of politics and ‘statism’ here. Oddly enough, both […]
Will You Be Alive When We Run Out Of Oil?
By the time I turn 81, humanity will have run out of oil. Just two years later, when I am 83, we’ll run out of coal. And if I live to the age of 141 – which isn’t such a far-fetched idea with the way life expectancy is rising – we’ll be out […]
Cars Of The Future, Today: A Flying Car And A Self-Balancing Two-Wheeled Car
The pace of technological advancement accelerates every year. Here are two car prototypes that highlight the advancement. C-1 Electric Two-Wheeled Car Please consider the C1, a Self-Balancing, Two-Wheeled Car invented by Daniel Kim, founder of Lit Motors. Motorcycles make more sense for single-passenger trips, but they are more dangerous to operate than cars, […]
Is This The Chart Of A Healthy Stock Market?
If fundamentals like profits and sales no longer matter, then all that’s left is faith that central banks will never let stock markets fall ever again. Is this the chart of a healthy stock market? The consensus view is either 1) yes, by definition, because charts don’t matter because the central banks will never let markets […]
