The US dollar’s day started with a drop. During trading in Asia, the US dollar index (DXY) fell to 95.46. During trading in Europe, it recovered all its losses, restoring to 95.88. On the back of a strengthening dollar, the euro/dollar rate has fallen from 1.1456 to 1.1372 (-84 pips). Sellers didn’t manage to break the 1.1380 support and the rate restored to 1.1407. In Europe, the British pound is trading up thanks to a slide on the euro/pound cross. At the time of writing this review, the pound is selling at 1.2936 USD (intraday high: 1.2952). Trader sentiment on the USD/CAD and CHF/EUR pairs has improved, while it’s decreased on the N...
The first day of the Federal Reserve’s Humphrey-Hawkins testimony appears to have been well-received, at least by equity markets. During yesterday’s testimony, Chair Yellen reiterated that the bank is continuing to look to tighten policy while also preparing to start reducing the balance sheet by the end of this year. What might not have been expected, and what may have driven bulls across the equity space was the last paragraph contained in the Monetary Policy Report to the Congress. After much of the report offered an upbeat tone towards forward-looking economic conditions, the last paragraph echoed what has become known as the ‘Fed ...
Fidelity Select Medical Equipment & Systems (FSMEX – Free Report) a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) invests at least 80% of assets in common stocks of companies principally engaged in research, development, manufacture, distribution, supply, or sale of medical equipment and devices and related technologies. The fund offers dividends and capital gains twice a year in April and December. This Sector – Health fund, as of the last filing, allocates their fund in three major groups; Large Growth and Small Growth. Further, as of the last filing, MEDTRONIC PLC, BOSTON SCIENTIFICCORP and INTUITIVE SURGICAL INC were the top holdings for FSME...
The market expectations for weekly initial unemployment claims (from Bloomberg / Econoday) were 242 K to 250 K (consensus 245,000), and the Department of Labor reported 247,000 new claims. The more important (because of the volatility in the weekly reported claims and seasonality errors in adjusting the data) 4 week moving average moved from 243,500 (reported last week as 243,000) to 245,750. The rolling averages generally have been equal to or under 300,000 since August 2014. Analyst Opinion of Initial Unemployment Claims The trend of the 4 week moving average worsened this week. This marks 121 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,0...
I don’t know if there is a German housing bubble or even whether there will be one. I do know that we hear a lot about it in the press – the result of zero, even negative, interest rates. So let me give you a little anecdote from my trip to Germany last week. I was in Cologne for a few days for a family event and at some point got talking to a member of my family about saving and investing. Let’s call him Hans. Hans told me that the household investment situation in Germany was difficult because of low rates. Traditionally, ordinary people used their savings book as a principal investment vehicle. But because of negative rates, people w...
I was initially going to try to write something about equities (specifically, the ES), but Good Lord, what on earth is there to say except… endless abortions. What I mean by that is that every time it seems we’re set up to fall (see green tint), voila, we abort the breakdown and Yellen saves the day again. Boring, annoying, and frustrating… Thus, I’ll instead content myself to share thoughts on gold, as shown here: Here are my observations: (1) Gold has been, since last December, progressing in a steady series of higher highs (green tint) and higher lows (2) For lack of a better word, gold ran out of gas, and although its next rally t...
Our intraday outlook is bearish, and our short-term outlook is bearish. Our medium-term outlook remains neutral, following S&P 500 index breakout above last year’s all-time high: Intraday outlook (next 24 hours): bearish Short-term outlook (next 1-2 weeks): bearish Medium-term outlook (next 1-3 months): neutral Long-term outlook (next year): neutral The main U.S. stock market indexes gained between 0.6% and 1.1% on Wednesday, breaking above their recent trading range, as investors’ sentiment improved following economic data releases, Fed’s Janet Yellen’s Congressional Testimony. The S&P 500 index got close to i...
Today’s release of the June Producer Price Index (PPI) for Final Demand came in at 0.1% month-over-month seasonally adjusted, up from last month’s 0.0%. It is at 2.0% year-over-year, down from 2.4% last month, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. Core Final Demand (less food and energy) came in at 0.31% MoM, down from 0.3% the previous month and is up 1.9% YoY. Investing.com MoM consensus forecasts were for -0.1% headline and 0.2% core. Here is the summary of the news release on Final Demand: The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.1 percent in June, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported ...
GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 13, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — OpGen, Inc. (Nasdaq:OPGN) announces the pricing of a public offering of an aggregate of 25,000,000 units. Each unit is comprised of one share of common stock (or common stock equivalent) and one common warrant to purchase one share of common stock. The units are being offered at a price of $0.40 per unit. Each common warrant has an exercise price of $0.425 per share, is exercisable immediately and will expire five years from the date of issuance. The shares of common stock (or common stock equivalent) and the accompanying common warrants included in the units can only be purchased toge...
The Aussie and Kiwi Dollars benefited from the greenback’s slide after yesterday’s testimony by the head of the Federal Reserve suggested some caution ahead in terms of interest rates. Though Janet Yellen was cautiously optimistic that inflation would be picking up in the near term, the release this Friday of personal inflation date (CPI) will go a long way to confirming or dismissing the Fed’s official posturing which is less hawkish than some FX traders would like. Currently, analysts are expecting CPI to edge to 0.2% in June on a month-over-month basis, while on an annual basis expectations are for a fall to 1.7% from 1.9%. As repo...