Latest Posts

  • Finance 0

    S&P 500 Snapshot: Rally Day Five

    Global markets rallied today. The Nikkei and Hang Seng both rose in the vicinity of 1.6% and the Euro STOXX 50 surged 3.31%. US equity indexes followed suit. Our benchmark S&P 500 opened higher and rose fractionally above 1% in the opening 10 minutes. The index then continued to rise throughout the day to its 1.94% intraday high shortly before the close. It ended the session with a 1.83% advance, the fifth day of the latest rally. The yield on the 10-year note ended the day at 2.07%, up 8 bps from the previous close. Here is a snapshot of past five sessions. Here is daily chart of the SPY ETF, which gives a more reliable sense of investor...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    A Compelling Case For General Motors’ 4.5% Dividend Yield

    GM has been nothing short of an extremely disappointing business (and investment) for more than a decade. Market share losses, chronically unprofitable operations, ballooning pension and healthcare obligations, safety issues, vehicle recalls, a massive government bailout during the financial crisis, and more have left investors’ skeptical of GM since its relisting in late 2010. More recently, uncertainty in China (GM’s second largest market) and a potentially peaking automotive market have created additional anxiety about making an investment in the company. We think the new GM is a much healthier, structurally more competitive c...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    Market Talk October 5th, 2015

    The market reaction to the US data on Friday has confused many with both stocks and Bonds bouncing into the close. Overnight the Asian equity markets have continued the positive response which has also carried into the European opening but interestingly – only for equities. The reaction in the bond markets is we have seen US 10’s remain just under the psychological 2% but the spread against German Bunds is where the interest is playing-out. The TY/RX spread has tightened this morning by 4bp to +144bp with US 10’s trading unchanged at 1.995% while Bunds are slightly higher at 0.555%. Talk between dealers after the US employment re...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    SP 500 And NDX Futures Daily Charts – 3Q Earnings Season Starts This Week

    US corporations will begin announcing their 3Q numbers shortly. The economy continues to flounder, so the earnings may obtain additional attention. I am sitting largely in cash after today’s rally. Have a pleasant evening. Click on picture to enlarge Click on picture to enlarge Click on picture to enlarge Click on picture to enlarge    ...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    Financial Repression – Governments Boost Their Coffers And Hold Down Interest Rates

    Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the government will run out of money to pay its bills sooner than previously thought around November 5, 2015.  Lacking sufficient cash, it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations for the first time in our history. Again, another year, to increase the USA debt limit by the government. Will monetary and fiscal policy ever return to “sanity”?  Will the political leaders ever become brave enough to quit spending more of the taxpayer’s monies than they bring in without fear of losing elections? Will Americans ever elect someone who doesn’t just promise them mor...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    Can This Food & Beverage Giant Surprise Investors In This Quarter’s Earnings Report?

    Pepsi Co. (PEP) will report its third-quarter earnings Tuesday before the market opens. Wall Street analysts are anticipating an EPS of $1.27 and Revenue of $16.19 Billion. The Estimize consensus is more optimistic, expecting an EPS of $1.30 and Revenue of $16.28 Billion. Can the North American Business Provide Growth? Pepsi Co’s North American Business consists of Frito-Lay North America, Quaker Foods North America, and North America Beverages (Latin America is now grouped in its own category.) Last quarter, Frito-Lay N.A. attributed for roughly 22% of the company’s net revenue. The consistency of this business segment has helped counte...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    A Global Recession Is Coming… And It Won’t Be Pretty

    Syracuse, Sicily – “When in doubt, go to Italy” is the saying. We are always in doubt. What better place to go? Today, a warning about why a global recession is now likely. But first, an update on Sicily… where we’ve spent the last few days exploring. Sicily is not exactly Italy. It sits in the middle of the Mediterranean, where every sleepy sailor or ambitious empire builder was bound to wash up. The Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, and French – all tried their hands at ruling Sicily. The Italians are only the most recent of the invaders. A Visit to the Temples We rented a little Fi...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    There Is No Rally – Yet

    Do not be fooled by the headlines or talking heads on TV. I am a great believer in Technical Analysis but I’m not a day trader. I look at trends in technical data from as short as 14 days to as long as 1 year plus a whole lot of technical trends with time frames in between. You can never predict the market but you can surely analyze which way it is trending and plan your portfolio management to contain trending stocks. For me I like to see trends in the Market as measured by the Russell 3000 Index and the Value Line Arithmetic Index. My earliest trend is which way their 14 day turtle channels are trending. Today 54.37% of the stocks ...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    America Is A Time Bomb: Next Dollar Crash Will Be The Last

    In his latest appearance on InfoWars with Alex Jones, Peter Schiff discussed the Friday jobs report numbers. Peter explains why he thinks the United States could be facing an official recession if third quarter GDP growth turns out to be negative. Peter and Alex also discussed how the world is losing its confidence in American stability and its paper money. The next time the dollar goes down, it’s not going to have any friends. No one is going to be buying it. Nobody is going to fight that currency war again. America is going to lose that war. And anybody that owns the US dollar is going to lose that war…” Click here to watch Peter’s ...
    On October 5, 2015 / By
  • Finance 0

    The Sky Is Not Falling…Yet

    The Employment Report on Friday was bad – but it wasn’t the unmitigated disaster that the consensus seems to have spun it into. It is true that there were no bright spots. It is true that the net number of new jobs added was worse than consensus and indeed worse than some of the more pessimistic expectations. But 142k new jobs is not a recessionary collapse (yet). Let us remember that one or two months every year fall below that figure (see chart, source Bloomberg). Click on picture to enlarge Folks, it’s just not a robust recovery and never has been. It has been slow and steady, and now it is probably petering out, but…let’s not ...
    On October 5, 2015 / By