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  • Finance 0

    Kimberly-Clark – Chart Of The Day

    The Chart of the Day belongs to Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB). I found the consumer products stock by using Barchart to sort the Russell 3000 Index stocks for the highest technical buy signals, then used the Flipchart feature to review the charts. Since the Trend Spotter signaled a buy on 1/29 the stock gained 1.56%. Kimberly-Clark Corporation is one of the leading consumer products companies. Its global tissue, personal care and health care brands include Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex, Depend, Kleenex, Scott, Kimberly-Clark, Safeskin, Tecnol, Kimwipes and Wypall. Other brands well known outside the U.S. include Andrex, Scottex, Page, Popee an...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    E Banks Are Wrapped-Up In An Enigma

    Banks are wrapped-up in an enigma… unrelated to the lack of transparency about Chair Yellen’s testimony coming right up; but perhaps fearful of a concern which we have already expressed: negative interest rates.  That’s why we pleaded, when we heard (and shared) rumors over a week ago that US banks would be asked to initiate stress tests to see ‘how they’d do’ in a ‘negative yield environment’. We saw that as a ‘trial balloon’, and in today’s last hour they trotted-that out again. The timing was perhaps intended to coincide with a few minutes left in Tuesday’s NYSE ...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    It Was Never About Oil

    The link between stock prices and oil has been especially high of late, and that has left quite a few traders and experts stumped. For a good long while any impact from oil was denied as only “transitory” or even helpful to consumers through some sort of “tax cut” effect. In January 2016, however, liquidations appeared regularly in one alongside the other. This is/was not supposed to occur. From last month: “Absent an economic recession, stocks have fallen too far in my mind as a long-term investor,” says John Buckingham, who manages about $600 million as chief investment officer of Al Frank Asset Management… “It’s a big mo...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    The Thailand Investment Scam

    With every positive invention, scams invented by unscrupulous operators follow. Here is a story about how one scam came across my desk for two different clients in the same week! The first case: A new client was referred to me. The task was to assist in a transaction where a Kuwaiti company was going to purchase 10% of the client’s equity for $5.5 million. The investor had located them through an Angel website (an Angel is a high net worth individual that is interested in investing in startups). Naturally, the client was ecstatic. They had not raised even 10% of that sum yet. I had some healthy skepticism, but my task was to investigate and...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Dow Jones Industrial Average Slips 12 Points On Oil Decline

    How Did the Stock Market Do Today? Dow Jones: 16,014.38; -12.67; -0.08% S&P 500: 1,852.21; -1.23; -0.07% Nasdaq: 4,268.76; -14.99; -0.35% The Dow Jones Industrial Average today (Tuesday) lost 12 points as oil prices fell again on supply concerns and traders prepared for U.S. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s appearance before Congress on Wednesday. The markets received a late-session boost from biotech stocks after the Nasdaq Biotech Index added 0.1%. Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. (Nasdaq: GILD) added 2.3%, while Allergan Plc. (NYSE: AGN) gained 2.3%. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) – Wall Street’s ...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    There’s Something Worse Than Having A “Losing Position”

    There’s something worse than giving up at the bottom… There’s something worse than watching prices fall as you continue to add on the way down… It’s giving up “three feet from gold,” when if you had just stuck it out a bit longer, things might have turned your way. This tendency is part and parcel of human nature, and its effect is not to be underestimated. Way back in 1938, Napoleon Hill wrote about it in the classic book, Think and Grow Rich. Consider what his research uncovered. Said he: More than five hundred of the most successful men the country has ever known, told the author (Napoleon Hill) th...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Pinterest Is A Top IPO Candidate In 2016

    In what will undoubtedly shape up as the year of  Financial Unicorns, Pinterest is among the most likely IPO candidates. Investors should keep close watch on the company, which has an $11 billion valuation Pinterest’s big advantage in the social media space is its potential for monetizing non-intrusive advertising. The company offers great content and allows users to seamlessly discover and explore new products for future purchases. Observers of social media say that companies who do the best job of engaging audiences with quality content and provide the most enjoyable overall user experience will be the most successful. Some other ...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Nasdaq Volatility Spikes As “Exuberance Has Turned To Panic”

    With the “generals” finally meeting their reality-maker, investors appear to be questioning the DotCom bubble-like highs as momentum collapses. “Exuberance has turned to panic pretty quickly,” notes one asset manager and after a very rapid plunge in recent days, options traders are piling into protection at a pace not seen since Q4 2008. The Nasdaq-S&P implied vol spread is more than double its 5 year average… (ignore the spikes as they represent rolls as opposed to trends) As Bloomberg reports, options traders are betting the pain is far from over in the Nasdaq 100 Index, driving the cost of protection to...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Curious Case Of Oil’s Contagion To Capital Markets

    With the S&P 500 down by 9% on the year by February 10th, we’re off to the worst start since the recessionary year of 2008 (at least on the Gregorian calendar); it’s too early to tell for the Lunar New Year. If there was any hint of over-optimism on the part of investors heading into the New Year, that by now is gone. We live in a time growing with extremes wherever you may find them – market moves, the weather, politics. I’m sure the leading Presidential candidates are adding to investors’ anxiety and definitely a play on extremes, even within each parties’ establishment. If the market climbs a wall of worry, then there are b...
    On February 9, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    What Is The Gold Standard?

    What is “the gold standard?” Many readers would consider this a simple question and perhaps even an obsolete one. It is for precisely this reason that a mere definition is inadequate as an answer. A definition conveys no understanding and thus does nothing to eliminate the many misconceptions surrounding this concept. In order to provide sufficient context so that the definition provides meaning to readers, it is necessary to explore several, tangential subjects. As such, this discussion will contain: 1) A brief review of the abolition of our gold standard. 2) An examination (and assessment) of the criticisms of the gold standard, past an...
    On February 9, 2016 / By