Stocks stumble on interest rate fears ahead of Friday’s big December jobs report
U.S. stock indexes finished lower today, Thursday, January 5, on news that pointed to solid job growth and hawkish comments on interest rates from the Federal Reserve. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed down 1.16% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished...
It’s too soon to buy Tesla–stock drops another 12% on delivery “miss”
Tesla (TSLA) can’t win for winning. On Monday, while U.S. markets were, fortunately, closed, the company reported record quarterly deliveries for the fourth quarter of 2022 of 405,278 cars. Unfortunately, Tesla had convinced Wall Street to look for delivery of...
Bad news for 2023 from the IMF
Happy new year from the International Monetary Fund! The new year is going to be “tougher than the year we leave behind,” IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said on CBS on Sunday morning. “We expect one-third of the world economy to be in recession. Even...
Friday jobs report coming up
It’s deja vu all over again as New York stock markets reopen for trading tomorrow. We ended 2022 waiting for the monthly jobs report from the Labor Department to tell us when slower job growth would signal the potential end to the Federal Reserve’s cycle...
How sticky will inflation prove to be in 2023? Lessons from Christmas shopping say, Stickier than the market now expects (and the Fed hopes)
The big investing and economic question for 2023 is How hard will it be to push inflation down to something near the Federal Reserve’s 2% target? The answer will determine (at least until rising unemployment gets the Fed to blink in the second half of 2023) how...
China is a huge Covid petri dish: How dangerous is that for the rest of the world?
What we know about viruses says that they mutate faster when a virus has a huge pool of infected hosts where the virus is busy replicating away. From that perspective, the collapse of China’s 0-Covid containment policy has turned the country into a huge...
Please Watch My New YouTube video: Quick Pick Sell MGM
On Friday I posted my two-hundred-and-twentieth YouTube video: Quick Pick Sell MHGM This week’s Quick Pick is a little different. Normally my Quick Picks are long (buys) but this one is a short (sell). This is a reaction to the terrible Covid outbreak in China...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Trend of the Week Oil is Back for 2023
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-twenty-first YouTube video: Trend of the Week Oil is Back or 2023 This week’s Trend of the Week: Oil is Back for 2023. We’re looking at a great set-up for oil going forward into 2023. Oil performed well in 2022, so...
How bad will China’s Covid disaster be for stocks? The likely answer is very bad–sell Volkswagen and MGM
After swiftly abandoning its 0-Covid lockdown policy–without replacing it with anything resembling a national Covid protocol–China is facing a Covid disaster that could see more than 1 million deaths from the coronavirus in 2023. That would put...
China has become a Covid policy disaster–watch for the economic fallout
Overnight China has gone from having the world’s most restrictive Covid policy–0-Covid citywide lockdowns at the slightest sign of the virus–to no Covid policy at all. And the predictable result is a wave of infection that virus models predict could...
Powell refused to rule out recession yesterday and today markets sell off
Yesterday, Fed chair Jerome Powell in his post-Fed-meeting press conference said that a recession in 2023 isn’t inevitable. Growth will stay positive next year, he continued, although “it’s not going to feel like a boom.” How much isn’t...
CPI inflation falls more than expected today–market moves higher but not too high ahead of the Fed tomorrow
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that headline CPI inflation in November climbed at a 7.1% annual rate. Month-to-month inflation rose by just 0.1% from October. Core inflation, that is inflation without energy or food prices, rose at a 6.0% annual rate...
Please watch my New YouTube Video: Trend of the Week Nattering Nabobs of Negativity
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-fifteenth YouTube video: Trend of the Week Nattering Nabobs of Negativity This week’s Trend of the Week: Nattering Nabobs of Negativity. Spiro Agnew’s alliterative expression comes to mind as I listen to institutional Wall...
I expect a Santa Claus rally but after that it’s coal in the stocking for the first half of 2023
I expect investors and the stock market to behave as if Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Reserve has settled the important questions of how high (will the Fed take its benchmark Fed Funds interest rate) and how long (will the Fed continue to raise interest...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Pilbara Minerals
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-fifteenth YouTube video: Quick Pick Pilbara Minerals This week’s Quick Pick is Pilbara Minerals (OTCMKTS: PILBF). Pilbara is an Australian hard rock lithium producer. Hard rock lithium comes from mining spodumene deposits as...
AbbVie raises dividend again–but only by 5%
Once a company has put in the time and money to make the Dividend Aristocrats list, the company isn’t likely to squander that investment just because a recession looms. To make the list–and garner a big chunk of cash from conservative dividend...
Please Watch My YouTube Video: Waiting for the Fed
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-fourteenth YouTube video: Waiting for the Fed Today’s topic: Waiting for The Fed. We are about a week out from the Fed’s December 14 meeting, where another 50 basis point increase is expected. We’re now in the...
I’m selling Dow tomorrow out of my Dividend Portfolio
The November rally was kind to Dow (DOW) with the stock up 10.4% from November 1 through December 1. The shares have given back some of that lately, but I’d still like to book any gains here ahead of a possible recession or at least a further economic slowdown...
Freyr Battery announces sale of 20 million shares to raise capital for its Georgia gigafactory (and other manufacturing expansion)
Yesterday, shares of clean energy battery startup Freyr Battery (FREY) rumbled 12.01% on news that the company would sell 20 million new shares to raise capital for its planned battery factories in Norway and (newly announced) Georgia. Today, December 2, traders and...
Hot enough to make the Fed say ,”75, please”? November jobs report comes in above forecasts
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 263,000 in November, the Labor Department said today. (And the October jobs total was revised upward to a gain of 284,000.) The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%. Average hourly wages rose 0.6% in November from October. That was the...
Fed’s preferred PCE inflation measure fell in October–but not by much
Inflation progress in October but painfully slow. PCE–personal consumption expenditure–in inflation, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation index, rose at a 6% rate year over year rate through October. That was down from a 6.3% rate in September....
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick Defiance Quantum ETF
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-twelfth YouTube video: Quick Pick Defiance Quantum ETF This week’s Quick Pick is Defiance Quantum ETF (NYSEArca: QTUM). I recommend this great piece in Barron’s this week from Eric J. Savitz on the future of Quantum...
Adding BHP to my Dividend Portfolio
You have to do a fair amount of work in rearranging the dividend numbers for BHP (BHP) to understand why this diversified commodities producer made my list of safe dividend stocks paying 6% or more. (Subscribers to my paid JubakAM .com site got the whole list of 5.)...
Powell was very clear, but he didn’t add clarity on Fed intentions
In a speech to the Brookings Institution in Washington Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell clearly confirmed what other Fed officials have said this week: 1. The Fed will raise interest rates at its December 14 meeting by 50 basis points and not 75. That would follow...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: The Fed Is Now On Message–Ask Why
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-eleventh YouTube video: The Fed Is Now On Message–Ask Why Today’s topic: The Fed is Now On Message, Ask Why. Last week I spoke about how confusing the Fed’s messaging had been recently, but this week, everybody has...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Is the Fed Confusing or Just Confused?
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-ninth YouTube video: Is the Fed Confusing or Just Confused? Today’s topic: Is The Fed Confusing, or Just Confused? First, Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco Fed came out with a very mixed message about the Fed’s...
China’s Covid crisis gains speed
This week I expect continued fallout in China from a jump in Covid deaths and demonstrations calling for an end to the country’s 0 Covid lockdown policy. On Saturday protests spread to cities and college campuses around China, reflecting rising public anger at...
Friday’s release of November jobs report will decide if year-end rally continues
Economists surveyed by FactSet forecast that the November jobs report, set for release Friday morning, will show that the economy added 220,000 new jobs in the month. And that the unemployment rate ticked higher to 3.8% from 3.7% in October If that forecast is...
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick NiSource
Today I posted my two-hundred-and-eighth YouTube video: Quick Pick NiSource This week’s Quick Pick is NiSource (NYSE: NI). If you saw my last Trend of the Week video, you know that I believe the dip in utilities represents a good buying opportunity as utilities...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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