Do you believe Trump when he says a big China deal is near?
Today, Thursday December 12, just five minutes after stocks opened for trading in New York, President Donald Trump, tweeted that the U.S. and China are very close to signing a “big” trade deal. “They want it, and so do we!” he tweeted. Of course, last week President...
Inflation isn’t exactly dead
Wall Street is counting on the Federal Reserve to stay on the sidelines until September and then resume cutting interest rates. Some big money advisors are even counting on the Fed to cut interest rates again before September. Bloomberg ran an interview this morning...Fed keeps interest rates steady; Treasury yields and dollar slip slightly
As expected the Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate steady at 1.5% to 1.75% today. The median forecast from Federal Reserve officials pointed to no change in interest rates through 2020. “Our economic outlook remains a favorable one despite global...
Democrats sign onto revised U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement with vote likely next week
Washington, D.C. is the home of the surreal these days but the timing of the announcement by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still raised eyebrows. Just minutes after the House committees investigating President Donald Trump voted two articles of impeachment,...
Dividend Portfolio member Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico up on USMCA news and November traffic
It certainly didn’t hurt that House Democrats have agreed to support the revised U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, and to put it to a vote before the end of this session of Congress on December 20. But neither did Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico’s (PAC)...
China exports drop again in November
China’s total exports dropped 1.1% year over year in November, the country’s customs administration said on Sunday. Total exports to the United States fell 23% year over year. That was the worst result for exports to the United States since February and a...
Surprise! U.S. economy adds 266,000 jobs in November; unemployment drops to 3.5%
The United States added 266,000 jobs in November and the official unemployment rate fell to 3.5%. The results were buoyed by the return to jobs of 41,300 General Motors workers after the settlement of that strike. But the November total was still impressively stronger...
China bond defaults head for another record year
With 15 defaults in November, total onshore bond defaults have hit $120.4 billion yuan ($17.1 billion)in 2019, according to Bloomberg. That’s close to the 121.9 billion yuan record set in 2018. While the $17.1 billion in onshore defaults seems insignificant...
OPEC does nothing and markets seem to be ok with that
OPEC reached an agreement today to cut an additional 500,000 barrels a day from production. In reality that action is close to “no action” since OPEC has been informally making those supply reductions for most of the year thanks to voluntary cuts by Saudi...
“News” on U.S.-China trade talks takes away, “news” on talks gives back
A day after “news” on the lack of progress of U.S.-China trade talks led to a decline in stocks, “news” of progress in the talks has led to a modest rally. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 0.63% today and the Dow Jones Industrial...
Oil climbs ahead of December 5 OPEC meeting
Call it very, very cautious optimism. Maybe. Oil prices climbed ahead of the December 5 meeting of OPEC in Vienna. The oil market got a boost from a report today, December 4, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that showed U.S. crude inventories fell by...
Earnings retreat for the fourth quarter?
Wall Street analysts always cut their earnings estimates as a quarter progresses. (Which then lets lots of companies beat forecasts when they actually report.) But for the fourth quarter of 2019, the cuts to earnings estimates for the companies in the Standard &...
Trump says, No hurry to strike a trade deal with China in 2020, and markets tumble
“I don’t have a deadline,” Trump told reporters today in London. “I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal. But they want to make a deal now and we’ll see whether not the deal is going to be right.” And with that financial markets that...
Here’s how to think about Danaher’s offer to exchange shares for the Envista spin off
Danaher (DHR) has announced an exchange offer for shares of Envista Holdings (NVST), the dental services and supplies company recent spun off from Danaher. After Envista’s September IPO Danaher still held 80.6% of Envista shares. The exchange offer would allow...
Data clash on U.S. manufacturing–contraction or expansion?
According to the Purchasing Managers Index from the Institute for Supply Management the U.S.manufacturing sector slipped further into contraction in November with the index dropping to 48.1 in November from 48.3 in October. That was a fourth-straight monthly...
Lionsgate UK deal with Amazon raises speculation on a U.S. deal for studio’s content
Amazon (AMZN) and Lionsgate (LGF/A) have struck a deal that will put Lionsgate’s newest releases on Amazon’s streaming platform. The multiyear deal that begins on January 1, 2020, will give Amazon subscribers access to current box-office star Knives Out...
Where’d that come from? Trump reinstates tariffs on Brazilian and Argentine steel and aluminum
President Donald Trump has reinstated tariffs on steel and aluminum exports from Argentina and Brazil, leaving global financial markets wondering what that means. At best, the move is based on mis-understanding by the White House of how exchange rates work. The...
Gobble, gobble, have a great Thanksgiving
Along with the rest of the United States, I’m on the road today headed to grandma’s house over the hills and through the woods for Thanksgiving. Hope you get to be thankful with all those you love. (And travel safely.) I’ll be back posting after the...
The squeeze on the U.S. shale patch just keeps getting worse–selling Cheniere Energy out of my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio
The second quarter of the year is, historically, the weakest quarter for global demand for natural gas. That’s not a good forecast since the global glut of natural gas has already gotten so large that U.S. exporters of liquified natural gas have no place to send...
What about the Hong Kong vote? Market’s focus on just part of China news sends U.S. stocks to all-time highs
Today both the Standard & Poor’s 500 and the NASDAQ Composite Index hit all time highs. As of 3:40 p.m. New York time on Monday, November 25, the S&P 500 was up 0.67% and the NASDAQn Composite had gained 1.26%. There are two main drivers for the market...
Selling Synaptics out of my Jubak Picks portfolio tomorrow
When Synaptics (SYNA) traded at $40 I though the shares were undervalued. At $60 I think they’re close to full value. My target price on the stock is $64 and the shares closed at $58.51 today, up 2.94% on the day. Tomorrow I’m going to take advantage of...
A summary of the changes to my Dividend Portfolio as a result of my Special Report 3 Ways to Higher Income in a Low Yield Desert
Back at the beginning of November I published a Special Report on my subscription JubakAM.com site that revised the Dividend Portfolio I track on all my sites. The changes in the portfolio were an attempt to respond to a changed environment for yield–what I...
China’s Xi Jinping demonstrates why ending the U.S.-China trade war will be so tough
In spite of all the delays and all the contradictory claims I remain convinced that a Part 1 trade agreement between the U.S. and China will get signed. Maybe not in the remainder of 2019 but certainly within the early part of 2020. A wider agreement to settle issues...
Can’t anybody run a streaming service? Netflix joins the Disney glitch parade
Netflix (NFLX) customers couldn’t log in to their accounts for about two hours on Thursday morning. Downdetector.com recorded more than 1,000 companies in the first hour. This follows on a much more serious service disruption suffered during the launch of...
Could collapse of U.S.-China trade talks trigger a second Federal Reserve Put?
You’re aware, I hope, of the idea that there’s an implicit Federal Reserve put that undergirds a stock market trading near record highs. The idea is that Fed chair Jerome Powell, would move to cut interest rates to support stocks if the market looked like...
At least someone wants to buy TD Ameritrade–can we say the same for Citibank?
Interesting column by Matt Levine on Bloomberg Opinion today. In the piece “Schwab Broke Ameritrade to Buy It” he points out that the acquisition bid from Charles Schawb (SCHW) today to buy TD Ameritrade (AMTD) for a reported $26 billion comes after...
Oil rallies on actual inventory numbers after falling yesterday on projections
The Energy Information Administration reported today that U.S. oil inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma hub fell by 2.3 million barrels. That was the biggest draw down in inventory at Cushing in three months. Supplies at the Cushing Hub reflect production in the U.S....
Senate passes Hong Kong support bill, House to take it up today scrambling China trade talks
As you might imagine, this complicates things. Just as U.S. and Chinese negotiators struggle to put together a Part 1 deal to de-escalate the U.S.-China trade war, the two houses of the U.S. Congress are moving to pass legislation that would support pro-democracy...
iPhone sales up in China continuing Apple revenue momentum
Apple (AAPL) shipped 10 million iPhones in China during September and October, according to Bloomberg. That would be an increase of 6% from the same period in 2019. The projections add to speculation that sales of the iPhone 11 are running ahead of Wall Street...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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