Q2 GDP growth worse than hoped but better than it was last quarter
The first reading on second quarter U.S. GDP growth from the Bureau of Economic Analysis puts growth at 2.6% year over year. That’s below the consensus of 2.8% growth among economists surveyed by Briefing.com. But an important advance from the growth rate in the...
June durables positive lead in to tomorrow’s Q2 GDP report
Headline durable goods order climbed 6.5% in June. That’s well above the 2.9% increase expected by economists surveyed by Briefing.com, and quite a turnaround from the revised 0.1% drop recorded in May. Â The headline numbers weren’t nearly as good as they...
Oil rallies for another day on inventory drop in EIA report
The July 26 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration followed up on the surprisingly good news yesterday on U.S. crude inventories from the American Petroleum Institute. The numbers from the American Petroleum Institute showed a much bigger than expected...
Oil’s big day as OPEC and U.S. oil shale both produce big news
U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate closed up 4.21% to $48.25 a barrel today, July 25. International benchmark Brent climbed 3.93% to $50.51 a barrel. Big moves. Exactly what you’d expect on a day when both OPEC and U.S. shale producers produced big news. On...
Long-term pick Bunge gets motivated
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully,” James Boswell quotes Samuel Johnson as saying upon the occasion of the hanging of William Dodd in 1777 for a loan scam. CEOs don’t...
Huge earnings beat can’t save Alphabet from metrics miss
Alphabet (GOOG) dropped 3.1% in after hours trading in spite of reporting earnings of $5.01 a share, well ahead of the $4.49 expected by Wall Street. Revenue of $26.01 billion, up 21% from the second quarter of 2016, also beat the Wall Street consensus of $25.6...
Market reaction to Microsoft isn’t making me jump up and down ahead of Facebook, Amazon earnings next week
In my Saturday Night Quarterback post last weekend on my subscription site JubakAm.com, I said that I was looking for Microsoft’s (MSFT) earnings, reported after the close yesterday, July 20, for clues on how the U.S. stock market would react to earnings reports...
MGM shares climb on news stock is to join S&P 500
Effective July 26, MGM Resorts International (MGM) will join the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index to replace Reynolds American (RAI), which is being acquired by British American Tobacco. (That means that all funds that track the S&P 500 index will...
Qualcomm’s earnings show cash flow under siege; selling out of Dividend Portfolio
The earnings Qualcomm (QCOM) reported yesterday, July 19, were okay. Earnings of 83 cents a share for the June quarter, in fact, beat the Wall Street consensus by two cents a share. Revenue of $5.37 billion was ahead of analyst projections of $5.25 billion, but still...
Good news on two fronts from dividend pick Kinder Morgan
Yesterday, July 19, Kinder Morgan (KMI) reported earnings per share of 15 cents, in line with Wall Street expectations. Revenues of $3.37 billion were ahead of the consensus estimate of $3.12 billion and represented year over year growth of 7.1%. Â That was item one...
Money managers most underweight U.S. stocks since January 2008, but NASDAQ is most crowded trade
According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s most recent survey, money managers are 20% underweight U.S. equities. (The survey was conducted from July 7 to July 13.) Managers haven’t been this underweight since January 2008. At that point the Standard &...
How the log jam among Republicans in Congress works from here on the budget and tax cuts
You can never be absolutely certain a bill has gone down to final defeat in this Republican-controlled Congress, but it certainly looks, as of late Tuesday night, that the Republican effort to repeal and  replace  Obamacare  has died in the Senate–and that a...
Today’s bank earnings and market reaction a mixed bag–which is an improvement from Friday’s pessimism
More big bank earnings today–and, fortunately, they were a mixed bag. Which made them markedly better than Friday’s results. Bank of America’s (BAC)’s second-quarter earnings per share rose 12% to 46 cents, beating by 3 cents a share. Revenue...
Adding Nidec (NJDCY) to my long-term 50 stocks portfolio
Back on July 11 I wrote a Sector Monday post on the robotics sector on my subscription site JubakAM.com. I’ve already added Fanuc (FANUY) to my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio. And tomorrow with this post I will be adding Nidec (NJDCY) to that same long-term...
China economic data too good to be true?
Talk about hitting your marks! Second quarter GDP grew in China at a 6.9% year over year rate, Beijing reported over the weekend. The consensus projection called for 6.8% growth. In the first quarter China’s GDP grew at 6.9% year over year. In June Fixed Asset...
Buy Fanuc in my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio
I’m adding the ADRs for Japan’s Facuc (FANUY:US) to my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio today, July 13. If you’re looking for a stock to take advantage of the long-term growth in the more conventional end of the robotics sector, I think Fanuc is your...
One less worry hanging over shares of Jubak Pick Cheniere Energy
One worry hanging over shares of Cheniere Energy (LNG), the first company to get an unrestricted license to export liquified natural gas (LNG) to any country in the world, was what would happen if some of the customers that signed a long-term contract to buy LNG from...
Inflation at the wholesale level edges up slightly
A day after Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen boosted markets with her worries about slow inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released numbers on inflation at the producer level–otherwise known as wholesale inflation–that showed inflation is weak...
Yellen doesn’t say much but bond market likes what it thinks it heard
It’s not much to hang a rally on, but the Treasury and stock markets moved up after Fed chair Janet Yellen told the House Financial Services Committee today that “the federal funds rate may not have to rise all that much further to get to a neutral policy...
Worry about central banks gains weight
Today it’s JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon telling a conference in Paris that the unwinding of central bank bond-buying programs is an unprecedented challenge that may be more disruptive than people think. Tomorrow (and Thursday) it’s Federal Reserve...
Earnings season kicks off this week: Are expectations low enough? Bank stocks will tell on Friday
For all intents and purposes second quarter earnings season kicks off on Friday. Yes, PepsiCo (PEP) does report on Tuesday and Delta Air Lines speaks on Thursday, but the real bellwether earnings reports come from the big banks on Friday with earnings from Citigroup...
June jobs gains beat projections but where are the wage increases?
The U.S. economy added 222,000 jobs in June. That was a big increase from the 152,000 jobs added in May, which was itself an upward revision from the initially reported 138,000. (And remember how disappointing that was.) Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had...
Oil market can’t decide what “facts” count
Sometimes a market will move in response to a new fact reaching traders and investors. Sometimes, though, a financial market will change direction because traders and investors choose to emphasize a different set of facts today than yesterday. And that’s where...
Atlanta Fed raises Q2 GDP forecast; auto sales beg to differ
On July 3 the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDP forecast for second quarter GDP growth climbed to 3% year over year. That’s up from a forecast on June 30 Â for 2.7% growth for the quarter that ended on June 30. If the forecast proves accurate that would be good...
Have a fun–and safe–Fourth of July
And don’t eat too many hotdogs. Back tomorrow. Jim
On Monday Manufacturing ISM blew out projections for June
The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index for June released Monday morning climbed to 57.8 from 54.9 in May. That was the highest level of the index, where anything above 50 signals expansion, since 2014. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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