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  • Finance 0

    Hasbro’s (HAS) Q1 Earnings & Revenue Beat Estimates

    Hasbro Inc. (HAS – Free Report) along with its subsidiaries, provides children’s and family leisure time products and services globally. Hasbro’s product segments comprise Games, Girls, Preschool and Boys categories. Given Hasbro’s strong product line-up, which includes its core brands, licensed brands and lucrative product associations, the company remains well positioned for future growth. Moreover, the company’s consistent efforts to establish its global presence through strategic partnerships and rapid growth in emerging markets bode well. Meanwhile, increased investments in digital gaming market should drive revenues. Ho...
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Chinese Internet Leaders Will Shake The World

    A decade ago, Chinese internet companies were still marginal internationally. Today, they are world-class industry innovators. In the internet economy, the leadership is shifting from the advanced West to the emerging East. Today, China’s leading internet companies rival their counterparts in the West in terms of scale, value and innovation. Yet, their impact outside of China is still relatively limited. Even the international leader Alibaba generates less than 10% of its revenue outside China. But things are changing. Chinese internet players are already expanding in other emerging economies particularly in Asia but also in Brazil and Lati...
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    E Does The Fed Have To Shrink Its Balance Sheet?

    In March, the FOMC majority opinion held that it was time to start to shrink the Fed’s balance sheet and that the reduction should be carried out in a “predictable manner”. Various Fed members want to halt the program of reinvesting principal payments from maturing securities, starting as soon as this year, according to the minutes of the March meeting. The FOMC has been clear that a tightening program would eventually involve shrinking the central bank’s balance sheet. However, it said that it will not start unloading securities until the federal funds rate is  “normalized“. Yet, recently, a number of Fed officials have ...
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Fear Index Tanking, After Hitting This Resistance!

    Below is a chart for VIX (Fear Level) over the past few years. A rally had taken place in the VIX, driving it up to falling resistance and its 50% retracement level at (1), in the chart below. CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE We shared the chart above last week on Twitter last week. One of the reasons Premium and Sector members bought XIV, was due to this pattern and a seasonal pattern in stocks (strong the last two weeks of April). The VIX index is down nearly 40% in the past week, following hitting resistance at (1). Members this morning are pulling up stops to protect gains....
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    How Geopolitics Could Make Singapore The Most Important Gold Market

    Last year I had the privilege to attend a dinner with Mr. Chan Chun Sing, a Singapore Minister from the Prime Minister’s Office. I brought along a copy of Jim Rickards’s book “Currency Wars” to the dinner. In the book, Jim described his participation in the U.S Military’s first financial war games which were held to study various scenarios that could upset the dominance of the U.S dollar in the global financial system. During the war games, Russia led a bloc of countries to create a new currency based on a fixed gold ratio which was stored outside of Russian control in neutral Switzerland. Other countries could also obtain this ...
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Kimberly Clark Corp. Q1 Earnings Miss The Mark As U.S. Sales Slump

    Kimberly Clark Corp. (NYSE:KMB) early Monday posted worse than expected first quarter earnings results, as U.S. sales dragged amid relatively stronger international growth....
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Oil Market Rebalancing Myth Looks Close To Its Sell-By Date

    The myth of oil market rebalancing has been a great money-maker for financial markets.  Hedge funds were the first to benefit in H2 last year, as Reuters has reported, when: “OPEC and some of the most important hedge funds active in commodities reached an understanding on oil market rebalancing during informal briefings held in the second half of 2016…. OPEC effectively underwrote the fund managers’ bullish positions by providing the oil market with detail about output levels and public messaging about high levels of compliance. In return, the funds delivered an early payoff for OPEC through higher oil prices and a shift from contang...
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    French Elections Give Euro Life; DXY At Major Trendline Support

    Video length: 00:10:37 Higher yielding currencies and risk-correlated assets are running higher this morning thanks in no small part to the results of the first round of the French presidential elections. With Emmanuel Macron, the candidate most likely to beat Marine Le Pen in a runoff election advancing into the second round, the Euro is breathing a heavy sigh of relief that a French existential crisis will never materialize. With implied volatility having run significantly higher in EUR-crosses ahead of the French elections, there’s little room left to wonder why the Euro has traded so sharply higher at the start of the week. EUR/U...
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Forex Forecast For EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCAD, USDJPY – Monday, April 24

    Forecast for the EUR/USD currency pair Technical indicators of the currency pair: Prev Opening: 1.07163 Opening: 1.09160 Chg. % of the last day: +0.10 Daily range: 1.08207 – 1.09173 52-week range: 1.0366 – 1.1616 According to preliminary data, in the first round of the presidential elections in France, Emmanuel Macron (24% of the vote) and Marine Le Pen (22% of the vote) are leading. Both candidates go forward to a second round of voting, which will be held on May 7. There is a significant increase in demand for the euro. The EUR/USD currency pair opened with a gap up (more than 150 points). The key trading range is 1.08350-1.09150. The M...
    On April 24, 2017 / By
  • Finance 0

    Viva La Oil

    Oil prices are creeping back as global markets breathe a sigh of relief in the aftermath of the French elections. Crude oil sold off hard on geopolitical risk and the perception that U.S. oil production is going to offset OPEC production cuts even if it’s not true. Of course, the market believes it, at least right now, because if you say something long and hard enough, even if it is not true, the market will react. Baker Hughes (BHI) reported that drillers added oil 5 oil rigs for a 14th week in a row, now to 688 rigs. Shale production will increase to the highest level in 2 years as warmer weather makes it easier to produce. Shale dril...
    On April 24, 2017 / By