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  • Finance 0

    How To Amazon-Proof Your Real Estate Portfolio

    I recently heard Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, described as a “bull in a china shop” for the way it’s disrupted industry after industry. But that’s really the wrong analogy. An angry bull lashes out erratically, goring or trampling whatever happens to be in front of it at the moment. Amazon is far too mechanical for that. The better comparison for Amazon would be a steamroller. Like a steamroller, Amazon slowly and methodically flattens everything in its path. Bookstores? Obliterated. Shopping malls? On life support… and just barely. Department stores? Dying a painful death by 1,000 cuts. Even grocery stores, conven...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    June 2017 Manufacturing Survey Growth Mixed

    The ISM Manufacturing survey improved and remained in expansion. The key internals correlated and remained in expansion. The Markit PMI manufacturing Index, also released today, is in positive territory and marginally declined. Analyst Opinion of the ISM Manufacturing Survey ISM manufacturing index movements have correlated with Industrial Production Manufacturing index only half the time in the last 12 months. Based on this survey and the weak district Federal Reserve Surveys, one would expect the Fed’s Industrial Production index to be unchanged in June. Overall, surveys do not have a high correlation to the movement of industrial pro...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Bonds, Stocks Tumble As Nasdaq ‘Fear’ Hits 14-Year High

    After an optimistic overnight buying panic, markets nose-dived into the early close today led by Big Tech stocks… With FANG at 2-month lows. Bonds were also dumped as the dollar rallied. However, the biggest mover on the day was Nasdaq ‘VIX’… Which is now trading at its most fearful relative to S&P ‘VIX’ since 2002....
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Japan Economy On The Mend? ETFs In Focus

    Japan’s core inflation (excluding food) increased for the fifth straight month in May 2017. It grew 0.4% in the month compared with 0.3% in April. This was the fastest rise in more than two years, but it still remains far from the Bank of Japan’s 2% target rate Japan’s GDP grew 0.3% sequentially in the first quarter of 2017, at the same rate as the previous quarter. Consumer confidence improved marginally to 43.6 in May compared with 43.2 in April, while the business confidence index increased to 12 in the first quarter of 2017 compared with 10 in the fourth quarter of 2016. Although the country’s unemployment rate increased to 3.1% i...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Light Vehicle Sales Per Capita: Our Latest Look At The Long-Term Trend

    For the past few years, we’ve been following a couple of transportation metrics: Vehicle Miles Traveled and Gasoline Volume Sales. For both series, we focus on the population adjusted data. Let’s now do something similar with the Light Vehicle Sales report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This data series stretches back to January 1976. Since that first data point, the Civilian Noninstitutional Population Age 16 and Over (i.e., driving age, not in the military, or an inmate) has risen about 65%. Here is a chart, courtesy of the FRED repository, of the raw data for the seasonally adjusted annualized number of new vehicle...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Early Fireworks For The Nasdaq?

    Over the weekend we told you to watch the Nasdaq and specifically FB. Today’s trading was the pay-off. Going into the 4th of July be wary of the media calling stocks at all time highs. They will quote the Dow which is only 30 stocks. With everything up today the stocks that led this rally – FB, AAPL, MSFT, GOOGL, and AMZN were sharply lower. The Nasdaq continues to get pummeled. Watch this crucial video to find out the opportunities after the 4th… Video Length: 00:08:55...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    We Will Need To Watch This Key Market Trend In July

    This is going to be an interesting month and I think it will end up being a wild one for most stock market traders. We have all gotten used to low volatility in the markets, but that is likely to change. Will that lead to another big bubble run as many expect or a market dump that many fear? A clue to the ultimate answer of what will happen this fall will be in how the popular fad tech stocks respond to earnings this month. Last week MU reported earnings that “beat” expectations and gapped up on Friday to only dump after the opening. So it sold the news. If more stocks do this when earnings season heats up this month that will be ...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    EC Why Short Sellers Won’t Recoup Their Tesla Losses

    Written by Finbox  Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq:TSLA) is currently one of the most heavily shorted stocks, with a total short interest of $10.4 billion. Most of the short sellers are looking for any clue that can justify their position given the fact that TSLA has seen 70% growth YTD. Short sellers are now down a staggering $5.1 billion year to date whereas in June alone they lost over $1 billion. However, there may be more pain in store for short sellers due to a number of reasons. Difference in Tesla’s Bears and Bulls When taking a closer look at the analysts covering Tesla we find that most who are advocating short positions in Tesla come from...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Factor Picking Is The New Sector Picking

    One of the main points I always make during my active vs passive talks is that asset picking is becoming the new stock picking. You see, it used to be that alpha chasing active managers would pick stocks. The sales pitch was “I have a unique talent that will allow me to pick the best stocks so pay me a high fee to do that for you.”. That turned out to be a load of crap so the world changed a little. These alpha salesman then started saying that asset allocation was the best way to achieve alpha. They ran some backtests, identified certain sectors that perform well and then packaged funds to benefit from these sectors. Except that turned o...
    On July 3, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Tesla Q2 Sales Of 22,000 Cars Miss Expectations, Battery Production Blamed

    Heading into today’s car delivery estimate, Tesla had previewed that for the first half of 2017 it expects a substantial jump in vehicle deliveries. Recall that management guided for a 61% to 71% increase in Model S and Model X deliveries during H1 of 2017 compared with the first half of 2016. To achieve this goal, Tesla would need to deliver 47,000 to 50,000 vehicles in Q1 and Q2 combined. Moments ago Tesla announced its first half vehicle deliveries, and it made the low end of this guidance: just barely, with 47,100 autos delivered. Tesla delivered just over 22,000 vehicles in Q2, of which just over 12,000 were Model S and just over 1...
    On July 3, 2017 / By