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Finance 0
Is The Market Over The Rainbow?
Recently, several of the Modern Family phases deteriorated. The Russell 2000, in a confirmed Warning phase for 2 whole days, today, returned to an unconfirmed Bullish phase. After holding the major support at 144.50 to the tick on Wednesday, today, IWM rallied up over 1.4%. Regional Banks (KRE), which had jumped from a Distribution to Warning to a Bullish phase, closed slightly in the red today. That could have significance as the week ends tomorrow. After all, our Prodigal Son in the financial sector needs to stay in the game. Biotechnology (IBB), after confirming the Distribution phase, today did exactly what it needed to, cleared 308 and r... -
Finance 0
Venezuela, PDVSA CDS Triggered: ISDA Says Credit Event Has Occurred
In a long overdue, and not exactly surprising decision, moments ago the ISDA Determination Committee decided, after punting for three days in a row, that a Failure to Pay Credit Event has occurred with respect to both the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as well as Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. Specifically, in today’s determination, in response to the question whether a “Failure to Pay Credit Event occurred with respect to Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.?” ISDA said that the Determinations Committee voted 15 to 0 that a failure to pay credit event had occurred with respect to PDVSA. ISDA said the DC also voted 15 to 0 that dat... -
Finance 0
Party Pooper
Well, once again………… The market had been breaking down nicely, but China threw billions upon billions of yuan at the slight weakness in their market and made everything all better again for the bulls. Plus, here in the U.S., people have embraced the notion that cutting taxes for rich people will make a country over $20 trillion in debt prosper like never before. Chart after chart shows the same thing – – a weakening market whose weakness was utterly aborted with today’s bull-gasm: The red arrow indicates where things “should” have gone in a normal market. Take note of the massive green bar that took its place instead. Here... -
Finance 0
Are Utility Stocks Still Good For Retirement?
Utility stocks often form the backbone of a stock-based income-oriented portfolio. Especially in the case of regulated utilities, this makes a lot of sense. State regulations dictate rates, and thus companies’ returns on equity. Baked into all of that is usually a dividend–and even a modest level of dividend growth–that can be counted on year in and year out. In a low-interest-rate environment like the one we’re in now, such equity investments have (not surprisingly) been in high demand. This means that, on the whole, their stocks have been pushed to record highs in recent years. The Dow Jones Utility Average is up about 20% i... -
Finance 0
November 2017 Philly Fed Manufacturing Survey Declined
The Philly Fed Business Outlook Survey declined by remains in expansion. Key elements are in expansion but improved. Analyst Opinion of the Philly Fed Business Outllook Survey Consider this a stronger report than last month because of the improvement of the key internals. This is a very noisy index which readers should be reminded is sentiment based. The Philly Fed historically is one of the more negative of all the Fed manufacturing surveys but has been more positive then the others recently. The index moved from +27.9 to 22.7. Positive numbers indicate market expansion, negative numbers indicate contraction. The market expected (from Bloomb... -
Finance 0
The Hot New Tech Industry You’ve Never Heard Of
You can always tell when the bureaucrats get involved in a particular industry… Suddenly every company needs a “chief compliance officer” and a whole department of his (or her) lieutenants to make sure everyone inside the business, well … complies — with the latest diktat. We can debate whether additional rules make things better or worse. One thing that can’t be debated is that more rules mean more costs for a business … and a drag on its stock price. Unless, that is, it embraces “regtech” — regulatory technology. What the heck is that, you ask? A Huge Investment Opportunity Quite simply, regtech is the employment of t... -
Finance 0
Solar Energy Boom Could Heat Up The Global Energy Sector
By 2040, the world will need to add the equivalent of India and China’s current energy system to meet the demands of a surging global population and rising incomes. Among all other forms of energy, solar PV (photovoltaic system) is forecasted to see the largest and fastest growth in new capacity additions as prices continue to plummet and world governments enact policy favoring renewables. The claims above, which come from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) just-released World Energy Outlook 2017, is constructive for one of our favorite stocks, SolarEdge Technologies (SEDG), held in our Global Resources Fund (PSPFX). The company wa... -
Finance 0
Aflac: A Valuation Conundrum? – Part 1
Introduction Aflac (AFL) is a Dividend Aristocrat that has increased its dividend for 35 consecutive years. True value investors are a rare breed, because it takes a special mindset and/or psyche to successfully implement a value investing strategy. This is especially true during major bull markets like we’ve experienced since the 1st quarter of 2009. Common sense would dictate that it is much harder to find attractively valued companies during strong bull markets. Consequently, value typically only manifests during bull markets when a specific company is facing a negative situation.The secret is to determine whether the situation the comp... -
Finance 0
UBS Reveals The Stunning Reason Behind The 2017 Stock Market Rally
It’s 2018 forecast time for the big banks. With Goldman unveiling its seven Top Trades for 2018 earlier, overnight it was also UBS’ turn to reveal its price targets for the S&P in the coming year, and not surprisingly, the largest Swiss bank was extremely bullish, so much so in fact that its base case is roughly where Goldman expects the S&P to be some time in the 2020s (at least until David Kostin revises his price forecast shortly). So what does UBS expect? The bank’s S&P “base case” is 2900, and notes that its upside target of 3,300 assumes a tax cut is passed, while its downside forecast of 2... -
Finance 0
Mind The Gap: Natural Gas Bulls Continue To Defend Last Week’s Gap
For a second straight day December contract natural gas prices bounced off support around the $3.05 level but were unable to break lower and fill the gap below. This price action fit nicely with our Daily Morning Text Alert sent out to Trader level subscribers before 7 AM EST which breaks down our sentiment and a key trading level to watch for the day. The critical word ended up being “maybe,” as though we did test that $3.05 level a number of times today it was able to remain firm. In fact, prices were able to bounce a bit off it into the settle as well, led by later contracts along the natural gas strip. We see clearly the...
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