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  • Finance 0

    GDPNow Dips To 2.5% Following Bounce In Housing Starts; NY Fed Nowcast 1.2%

    The Atlanta Fed updated its GDPNow forecast following today’s housing and CPI reports. The Atlanta Fed model says 2.5%, the New York Fed Nowcast Model says 1.2%. The New York Fed updates its Model on Friday. Latest forecast: 2.5 percent — May 17, 2016   The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2016 is 2.5 percent on May 17, down from 2.8 percent on May 13. The second-quarter forecast for real residential investment growth declined from 5.3 to 2.5 percent after this morning’s housing starts release from the U.S. Census Bureau, the forecast for real consumer spending gro...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Far Too Late, Industrial Production Revisions Predictably Erased The Recovery

    Industrial production contracted for the eighth straight month in April, dropping 1.07% year-over-year. That’s a slight improvement from those prior months but likely only until April’s estimate is revised lower in the coming months. That has been the trend of late in both immediate terms as well as serious long-term revision to benchmarks. As far as the former, it suggests that even though contracting there is a very good chance that US industrial production is doing so at a moderately steeper pace than indicated now. In monthly terms, IP rose in April but again there is no reason to believe that gain will last once the Federal Reserve r...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    10 Low PE Stocks For The Enterprising Investor – May 2016

    There are a number of great companies in the market today. By using the ModernGraham Valuation Model, I’ve selected 10 low PE stocks for the Enterprising Investor.  These companies have the lowest PEmg (price / normalized earnings) ratio out of all companies reviewed by ModernGraham. Each company has been determined to be suitable for the Enterprising Investor and undervalued according to the ModernGraham approach. Defensive Investors are defined as investors who are not able or willing to do substantial research into individual investments, and therefore need to select only the companies that present the least amount of risk. Enterpris...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Why Is The Canadian Dollar Not Rallying With Oil Prices?

    The Canadian dollar and oil prices are well correlated and for a clear reason: Canada exports the black gold. Oil 33 is often the leader and the C$ follows. Economic indicators do have their impact on the currency, but when there’s nothing out of Canada, oil is the dominating force. However, even when various oil contracts lead, the impact on CAD can vary: sometimes a rise in the price of oil results in a big jump in the C$ and sometimes it is only a minor one. And it goes the other way around as well: sometimes a drop in prices is devastating for the loonie and in other occasions it is partially shrugged off. The reaction to changes in o...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Short Setups To Take While The World Burns

    Bears so far haves put in a lackluster effort of driving this market lower, but despite yesterday’s rally, still have the favor of all the daily charts on all the indices.  If the afternoon can treat them kindly and wipe out the gains from yesterday, and perhaps break the lows from last week, then there is a legitimate opportunity to confirm at some point this week the head and shoulders pattern at 2039 that has been forming in slow motion.  Careful with the short setups, look for opportunities in the stocks below where they simply aren’t chopping around intraday but actually making new progress to the downside. Many of the c...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Pandora Jumps After Hedge Fund Urges Company To Explore Sale

    Shares of Pandora (P) are on the rise after Corvex increased its stake in the company and sent a letter to its chairman Jim Feuille urging Pandora to explore a sale. SunTrust analyst Robert Peck was not surprised with the announcement but expects the company to publish an open response in support of its current business strategy. In February, rumors of a potential sale had emerged, but were largely pushed aside with the return of the music streaming service’s founder as the company’s CEO. CORVEX PUSHING FOR SALE: Yesterday, Keith Meister’s Corvex Management announced that its stake in Pandora had increased to 8.3%, as it bel...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Oil Supply Disruptions & The Global Supply Glut

    The big question this week is whether supply disruptions will make a dent in the oil market’s ever-present global supply glut. The answers in a nutshell: disruptions in Nigeria, Canada, and Libya are likely transient, whereas Venezuelan production poses a long-term problem. U.S. production will continue its slow decline, even if oil prices reach $50. On the other side, Iranian production will continue to increase—slowly—and Saudi Arabia will increase production rapidly. As for where the price of oil is headed – your guess is as good as mine. Nigeria The Nigerian National Petroleum Company generally produces about 2.5 mbpd, making ...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Updated VIX ETP Landscape, Including VMAX And VMIN

    Now that the recently launched REX VolMAXX Long VIX Weekly Futures Strategy ETF (VMAX) and REX VolMAXX Inverse VIX Weekly Futures Strategy ETF (VMIN) VIX exchange-traded products have started to achieve critical mass, I thought it would be a good time to update my VIX ETP landscape chart. In the graphic below, I have plotted all of the VIX ETPs with respect to their target maturity (X-axis) and leverage (Y-axis).    [source(s):  VIX and More] The most interesting change in this chart is the addition of VMAX and VMIN, which are on track to trade over 100,000 as a pair today for the first time since their launch two weeks ago. In deciding ...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Ebay Getting Into Wine

    The market hasn’t been too pleased with eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) lately after it hived off PayPal as an independent company. Over the past few quarters, eBay has been delivering lackluster performance for its e-commerce division and has failed to keep pace with e-tail giant Amazon. To make matters worse, the company is facing increasing competition from newer and smaller niche players like Etsy and Poshmark and has also suffered from its vulnerability to Google’s algorithm changes in the recent past. But the recent quarter’s results suggest that all is not lost. eBay’s Financials eBay’s Q1 revenues grew 4% over the year to $2.14 billion...
    On May 17, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    March Consumer Price Index: Headline CPI Up Slightly, Core CPI Essentially Unchanged

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the April CPI data this morning. The year-over-year nonseasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 1.13%, up from 0.85% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 2.15%, little changed from the previous month’s 2.19%. Here is the introduction from the BLS summary, which leads with the seasonally adjusted monthly data: The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.4 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index rose 1.1 percent before seasonal a...
    On May 17, 2016 / By