The first ATM was born in London on June 27, 1967. With the rise of new technologies, its future is looking bleak. Flashback to 1967 Just 50 years ago, a machine was distributing banknotes for the first time. It was a real revolution at a time when individuals around the world had to go to their bank’s counter to collect cash. On June 27, 1967, the British comedian and actor Reg Varney was the first man to ever make a cash withdrawal in an automated teller machine, or ATM, installed on the outside wall of a Barclay’s agency in London. This first machine has since been modernized and, on its 50th anniversary, Barclays has covered i...
Dispensing his usual dose of optimistic crude oil buzzkill, Bloomberg energy strategist Julian Lee points out something troubling to both OPEC, and those who are hoping that the latest dip in oil will finally lead to a sharp rally. He writes that while at first glance, this year’s diminishing U.S. oil stockpiles appear to support the notion OPEC is finally getting the global crude glut under control. Surging exports mean that the market should treat that idea with caution. The problem is that, as has been the case over the past year, stockpiles aren’t coming down because the oil is being used, it’s just being moved overseas. A...
Mutual funds having significant exposure to diversified bonds are excellent choices for investors seeking steady returns with a relatively low level of risk. Investing in funds that maintain a portfolio of bonds issued across a wide range of market sectors, also reduces sector-specific risk. Moreover, investing in diversified bond funds is preferred to individual bond investing, as building a portfolio of the second type may prove relatively more expensive. A higher level of liquidity also makes diversified bond funds more attractive. Below we share with you four diversified bond mutual funds. Each has earned a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank #1 (St...
It’s the start of a new week as well as the semi-official start of the second half of the year, so let’s get right to our objective review the key market models and indicators and see where things stand. To review, the primary goal of this weekly exercise is to remove any subjective notions I might have in an effort to stay in line with what “is” happening in the markets. So, let’s get started… The State of the Trend We start each week with a look at the “state of the trend.” These indicators are designed to give us a feel for the overall health of the current short- and intermediate-term trend models. Executive Summary: The s...
Market Analysis A tool to help confirm the overall market trend is the Bullish Percent Index (BPI). The Bullish Index is a popular market “breadth” indicator used to gauge the internal strength/weakness of the market. Like many of the technical market internal indicators, it is used both to confirm a move in the market and as a non-confirmation and therefore divergence indication. Over the past eighteen months Nasdaq stock have led market direction. Last week we stated “…current BPCOMPQ chart is disconcerting…BPCOMPQ BPI reversed course into a downtrend. It is reasonable not to expect the major equity indexes to return to their high...
A Simple And Powerful Concept Eckhart Tolle’s New York Times Best Seller The Power Of Now has sold over 3 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 30 languages. The basic premise of the book is captured in the excerpt below: “Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the now.” The Twin Thieves: Fear and Regret Our entire investing lives have taken place in the now. We have never executed a buy order in the past, nor have we ever executed a sell order in the future. However, we have all wasted a considerable amount of mental energy thinking abou...
Of the 14 commodities we track closely at U.S. Global Investors, wheat rose to take the top spot for the first half of 2017, returning more than 25 percent. The grain was followed closely by palladium—used primarily in the production of catalytic converters—which gained 24 percent. To view our ever-popular, interactive Periodic Table of Commodity Returns, click here. Between the start of the year and June 30, the Bloomberg Commodity Index contracted 4.03 percent, with energy weighing down on the mostly strong performances of precious and industrial metals and agricultures. Contributing to metals’ gains was U.S. dollar weakness. During t...
Pepsico, Inc. (PEP) will release FQ2’17 earnings before the market opens on Tuesday, July 11th. Pepsi has been on somewhat of a rollercoaster ride in terms of EPS and revenue, the company’s Q4 and Q1 showed a downward trend, with a bounceback in Q2; which is exactly what Estimize and the Street are predicting for this upcoming report. The Estimize community is predicting EPS to come in two cents higher than the street at $1.42, and revenue at $15.662M, which is slightly more optimistic than the street ($15.642M). Estimize data also highlights that Pepsico sees positive price movement after an earnings release 68% of the time. The Est...
I’ve got some data for you that is surprisingly bullish for oil. Even more surprising is what that data relates to, those bloated U.S. oil storage levels. The data I’m about to specifically shows you details the movement in amount of oil that the United States has in storage this year versus recent history. All of the information comes from the EIA and you can access it through this link. First, I want to show you is the amount of crude oil and petroleum products that the United States has in storage (excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve). This includes crude oil as well as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel…..and so on. The bottom line in...
According to Gartner, more than $1 trillion in IT spending will be directly or indirectly affected by the shift to cloud by 2020, making cloud computing one of the most disruptive forces of IT spending since the early days of the digital age. CloudHealth’s cloud management platform is riding this wave of corporate cloud adoption. CloudHealth’s Offerings Boston-based CloudHealth was founded in 2012 by CTO Joe Kinsella and CEO Dan Phillips. While working at Dell, Joe saw how cloud computing was about to disrupt the tech world and wanted to build a company in the space that would merge his professional passion for systems management and buil...