Money continues to pour out of Italian and Spanish banks for safer havens. This month I note a curious side effect: A huge amount of money went into French banks instead of German banks. The following table shows the winners and losers. Target 2 Imbalances in Billions of Euros Country Symbol Dec Target2 Balance Nov Target2 Balance Month-Over-Month Change Comment Spain ES -254.1 -241.8 -12.3 Highest Since 2012 Italy IT -248.9 -229.6 -19.3 Highest Ever Greece GR -94.4 -97.3 2.9 Lowest Since 2014 Q4 ECB ECB -83.8 -73.8 -10 Highest Ever France FR -29.2 -73.5 44.3 Remarkable Comeback Germany DE 584.2 592.5 -8.3 Second Highest Since 2012 Luxembourg...
Germany, which accounts for an estimated 21% of the European Union’s GDP and has an unemployment rate that is less than half as high as the EU average, is now facing five big economic challenges: 1. Germany has one of the oldest populations in the world: it’s old age dependency ratio is as high as Greece’s and higher than any other country apart from Italy and Japan; the share of its population aged 80 or older is higher than in any European country apart from France or the “PIGS”. The largest part of Germany’s population is between 45-60 years old. Old age is beckoning. 2. Whereas Britain, France, Italy, Russia, India, China, a...
Just days after ConocoPhilips (COP) became the first major to slash its dividend, Anadarco (APC) followed suit and announced, just one week after it reported earnings that, it too would virtually halt distribution to shareholders, when it said that it would cut its dividend – the first such action in decades – from 27 cents to just 5 cents per share, an 81% cut, and far above the more modest expected reduction of 14 cents. The Board of Directors of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (APC) today declared a quarterly cash dividend on the company’s common stock of 5 cents per share, payable March 23, 2016, to stockholders of record...
Video length: 00:01:39 Today, we have several mid-level announcements coming out of the European Union as far as Industrial Production is concerned, but not really enough to move the markets drastically. We believe that ultimately the markets will continue to follow the momentum that we’ve seen for some time, so it makes trading somewhat simpler going forward. 1 – We believe that stock markets around the world are going to continue to struggle, and as a result we like the idea of buying puts on short-term rallies that fail. We think those will happen again and again, and it’s only a matter of time before the market falls lower. We ...
Daily Forex Market Preview, 2/10/2016 The US Dollar remained weak yesterday despite the lack of any market events. EUR/USD was seen trading near 1.13 while Gold attempted another go at the $1200 handle but failed. The economic calendar is busy today with the UK manufacturing and industrial production numbers due during the European session while Janet Yellen’s semi-annual testimony is due later in the evening. EUR/USD Daily Analysis EUR/USD (1.12): EUR/USD was seen briefly trading near 1.130 yesterday after prices rallied strongly during the NY trading session. Despite the rally, the resistance zone near 1.13 – 1.12 should be able to ...
Stocks were sharply lower to start what we like to call Turnaround Tuesday. Then what passes for the 2:15 Buy Program Express kicked in and stocks launched a powerful turnaround based on literally nothing at all. Does somebody know something we commoners don’t know? Possibly. But the HFTs may just be messing with us for fun and short-term profits. Or, is Yellen & Co going to offer some drama in testimony to the legislatures Wednesday and Thursday? There were rumors from traders the Fed will launch Operation Twist part 2, which given the intent of such an action, would seem counter to their overall plans. The rumblings from the globe ind...
SolarCity Corp. (SCTY – Snapshot Report) released its fourth quarter fiscal 2015 earnings results, posting earnings of -$2.37 per share and revenue of $115.48 million. Currently, SCTY has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), but it is subject to change following the release of the company’s latest earnings report. Here are 5 key statistics from this just announced report below. SolarCity: Beat earnings estimates. The company posted -$2.37, beating our Zacks Consensus Estimate of -$2.57. Beat revenue estimates. The company saw revenue figures of $115.48, ...
Podcast: Play in new window | Play in new window (Duration: 13:16 — 6.1MB) DOW – 12 = 16,014 SPX – 1 = 1852 NAS – 14 = 4268 10 Y – .01 = 1.73% OIL – 1.41 = 28.28 GOLD – .20 = 1189.80 Japanese stocks crashed 5.4%, making for the biggest daily drop since June 2013. The sell-off has the Nikkei hovering near a 16-month low. The weakness in stocks caused safe-haven buying of the yen, which strengthened to 114.21 per dollar, its strongest level since November 2014. Japan also became the first G-7 country to see the yield on its 10-year debt fall below zero, finishing at a record-low -0.035%, but the Swiss 10-year note is already...
Premier entertainment company The Walt Disney Company (DIS – Analyst Report) reported fiscal Q1 earnings results after the closing bell Tuesday, and easily topped expectations on the top and bottom lines. The release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens — already the most successful feature film in U.S. box office history — had a lot to do with this big positive surprise; Disney’s Studio business was up 46 percent year over year. Disney produced earnings of $1.63 per share on revenues of $15.24 billion — “a galaxy far, far away” from Zacks consensus estimates of $1.44 per share on $14.93 billion in sal...