For the next couple of months, your Facebook and Instagram feeds will likely be dominated by beach holiday photos, beers in the sand and people’s legs at the pool. School is out for summer and people are ready to vacation! American consumers are as confident as ever and this should translate to a great summer spending season. This summer, Americans are expected to spend a total of $101.1 billion on vacations this year, representing a robust 12.5% increase from 2016, according to projections from the Vacation Confidence Index released Wednesday by insurance company Allianz Global Assistance. This is the first time in the index’s eight-...
Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis downgraded Intel (INTC) to Underperform, his firm’s equivalent of a sell rating, and cut his price target on the shares to $29 from $38. Intel closed Friday up 25c to $33.88. The chipmaker’s Xeon/Xeon PHI platform is disadvantaged versus Nvidia (NVDA) in emerging parallel workloads like deep neural networking, Lipacis tells investors in a research note. He believes Intel, as the incumbent with dominant share, has the most to lose as the industry undergoes a “tectonic shift in computing toward a parallel model.” Intel is losing share in datacenter to Nvidia while chip competition from AMD ...
The past year has been rough for Gold Mining stocks, as Gold Miner ETF (GDX) has declined over 30%, in the chart below. Below compared GDX to Freeport Mcmoran (FCX) over the past year, reflecting a large difference in performance. Over the past year, GDX has been a good asset to avoid from a buy and hold basis and our members have. The chart below looks at the FCX/GDX ratio over the past 5-years. Since the start of 2016, the ratio has created a series of higher lows. Rising support was hit of late and turned higher again. The ratio is now attempting a breakout above falling resistance at (1). This move higher continues to reflect that F...
According to EPFR, investors were net sellers of European equity funds in the week ending July 5 for the first time since March. This appears to have ended the longest buying streak in a couple of years. Rising yields and valuations were thought to have injected a note of caution as well as some re-weighting at the start of Q2. European equity funds, according to EPFR have taken in $22 bln this year after experiencing outflows of nearly $100 bln last year. European bond funds, however, continued to draw savings. The $2 mln inflows into European bond funds pales in comparison to the $2.2 bln inflows recorded the previous week but d...
Listen to the Podcast Audio: Click Here Mike Gleason (Money Metals Exchange): It is my privilege now to welcome in Chris Powell, Secretary-Treasurer at the Gold Antitrust Action Committee, also known as GATA. Chris is a long-time journalist and hard money advocate, and through his tireless efforts at GATA, he is working to expose the manipulation of the gold and silver markets. Through GATA’s work over the years. Some important revelations have come to light, which quite honestly should concern everyone. It’s great to have him back on with us. Chris, how are you, and thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. Chris Powell (...
In the usual post-payrolls economic data lull, the focus this week will be on North America, with Chair Yellen’s semi-annual testimony on Wednesday alongside the the BoC, as well as a Friday data deluge in the US including CPI & retail sales. A 25bp hike this week from the Bank of Canada is expected, although the central bank may choose to wait until October. Additionally, there are monetary policy meetings in Korea, Malaysia, Chile, Peru & Israel. All eyes on the US: Fed Chair Yellen delivers her semi-annual testimony to Congress this week. According to DB, it will be fascinating to see whether Mrs Yellen chooses this weekR...
I would have loved to of seen a greater pullback in the market. And maybe we still get it right here, but Friday’s bounce was highly problematic for the bears. Simply put, they had the market, as they have had time and time again, on the ropes, with a breakdown in key support. All that had to be done, was to make traders believe it was fore real this time by simply following through with more downside on Friday. Instead, it did what it always does and that is drive the market back up and wipe out the entire day’s price action. Watch the declining channel off of the May 26th highs that has formed and will look to have its u...
If you own Apple (AAPL) you’re in big trouble. Well, maybe. The Great Rotation continues. The leading technology companies are still trading poorly. They may have another 5% to the downside. But it’s too late to sell them short. It all sets up the sideways “time” correction that I have been predicting for the summer. And what does best in this go nowhere, irritating, hair-tearing environment? The “Iron Condors” I have been setting up, which are most profitable when stocks don’t go up too much, or down too much. That’s why July is looking like a blockbuster +5%, or better month for avid followers of my Trade Alert service...
The latest update of the Labor Market Conditions Index for June is at 1.5, down from May’s revised 3.3. The LMCI is a relatively recent indicator developed by Federal Reserve economists to assess changes in the labor market conditions. The cumulative index (discussed below) is currently at its post-recession peak. The indicator, designed to illustrate expansion and contraction of labor market conditions, was initially announced in May 2014, but the data series was constructed back to August 1976. Here is a linear view of the complete LMCI. We’ve highlighted recessions with callouts for its value the month recessions begin and for...
Audio Length: 00:53:58 I saw this headline on LinkedIn recently: “Nifty will triple in 5 years.”1 The quote was attributed to Ridham Desai, Morgan Stanley’s head of research for Indian equities. Gaurav Sinha, who covers India extensively for WisdomTree, has been making the bullish case for India on our blog, but the potential drivers for the view that Indian markets would triple is something I wanted to learn more about. I invited Desai onto our “Behind the Markets” podcast to discuss his views with Gaurav and me. At the top of the show, we had the honor of speaking to Viral Acharya, the deputy governor of the Reserve Bank o...