Good jobs report turns into bad news for bonds and stocks this morning
The U.S. economy added 200,000 jobs in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected 180,000 net new jobs. The official unemployment rate remained at 4.1%. The U-6 total unemployment rate, which...
Hey, the Groundhog has an offer you can’t refuse–on a portfolio that made 53% in 2017
I just finished my performance report on my Volatility Portfolio of stocks, options, and ETFs, and for the first year of its operation the portfolio was up 53%. In honor of Groundhog’s Day I’m offering a 20% discount on my JubakAM.com site, the home of...
Corning drops on accounting loss from tax cut bill
Shares of Corning (GLW) took a 5.61% hit Tuesday, January 30,as the company reported a huge quarterly loss of $1.66 a share–or $1.412 billion. But all that loss was due to a $1.8 billion accounting write down as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Excluding...
After reading this new study on medical expenses in retirement my advice is Stay healthy and don’t be poor. Otherwise you’re screwed
I sit up and take notice when an anecdote from what’s called “real” life gets confirmation from a detailed study. That’s exactly what happened to me recently. And the picture this paints for retirement and medical expenses as we age isn’t...
Economy cooking along for now but what’s with the continued drop in productivity?
Positive economic data today–for the short term. But some troubling longer term trends continue. Â Initial claims for unemployment fell more than expected to 230,000 for the week ended January 27 versus expectations for 238,000 initial claims among economists...
Autoliv earnings beat and spinoff plans buck yesterday’s market plunge
While the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index was falling 1.04% yesterday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was giving up 362 point, auto safety supplier Autoliv (ALV) was busy climbing 8.07% on the day to close at $149.48. (The stock, a member of my Jubak...
Fed signals “maybe”on four interest rate hikes in 2018 but stocks stabilize anyway after yesterday’s drop
As expected the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at today’s meeting of the Open Market Committee. But in its post-meeting statement, the last in the chair for Janet Yellen, the central bank added language that points toward a slightly more...
PayPal beats on earnings and revenue, but falls after hours on profit taking
PayPal Holdings (PYPL) reported fourth quarter earnings of 55 cents a share, 3 cents a share above Wall Street estimates, and revenue of $3.71 billion (on a foreign-exchange neutral basis) vs projections for $3.63 billion. Revenue climbed 24% year over year for the...
The march to a yield of 2.7% on the 10-year Treasury has set off nervous market chatter–and a retreat in stock prices today
When is high too high? The U.S. stock market has been a real champ at sailing past the prospect of higher interest rates to new high after new high. But the march of the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury has led to a pause for thought among traders and investors. The...
Two big deals for Tencent Holdings support valuation
First, on January 15, China’s Tencent Holdings (TCEHY) announced that it would partner with privately-owned Lego to develop a Lego streaming video zone for children on Tencent’s video platform and create Lego-branded games for Tencent’s gaming...
Starbucks disappoints in quarter but recovery in 2018 is on track
Blame it on Christmas Tree Frappuccino. On Thursday, January 25, after the market close Starbucks (SBUX) reported December (fiscal 2018 first quarter) earnings of 58 cents a share (excluding one-time tax benefits.) The results were ugly on the revenue side where  the...
GDP disappoints, durable goods orders solid
The first read on growth in the U.S. economy during the fourth quarter was a tad disappointing. GDP increased by 2.6% year over year in the fourth quarter. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were looking for growth of 2.9%. In the third quarter of 2017 GDP grew at a...
Caterpillar beats on earnings and guidance but stock falls 1.4% today
Investors and traders were determined to sell Caterpillar (CAT) shares after the stock gained 70% in 2017. That determination overshadowed yesterday’s good news on fourth quarter earnings and positive guidance for 2018. The shares, which I added to my Jubak...
Helmerich & Payne completes its recovery from 2017 drilling slump; keeping the stock in my Dividend Portfolio
Helmerich & Payne (HP) reported December quarter (first quarter of the 2018 fiscal year) earnings of $4.57 a share. Â As they say on Wall Street–that $4.57 a share may not be comparable to the Wall Street analyst consensus estimate of a loss of 13 cents for...
Full reverse: Dollar recovers as President Trump talks up advantages of strong currency
Today somebody in the Trump administration decided that the idea of the world’s biggest debtor nation talking down the value of its currency–as Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin did yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos–might be a bad...
Dollar slump continues this morning as ECB president Draghi shrugs off euro strength
The dollar continued its fall this morning after European Central Bank president Marie Draghi voiced minimal concern over the rise in the euro. That currency topped $1.25 for the first time since 2014. The MSCI Emerging Markets Currency Index jumped 0.9%, its biggest...
Trump administration pushes a weak dollar at Davos
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin gave the markets a green light to push the U.S. dollar lower in remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Currency traders, already on board the lower-dollar train, didn’t waste time before pushing the throttle. The Dollar...
Adding Boeing to Jubak Picks on weak dollar, strong global economy, tax cuts
Shares of Boeing (BA) have tumbled from $351.01 on January 17 to close at $334.69 today. I’m using the pull back to add shares to my Jubak Picks portfolio tomorrow, January 25. The Boeing story right now is one of multiple tailwinds pushing the stock higher. A...
Adding Caterpillar to my Jubak Picks and Volatility Portfolios ahead of earnings tomorrow
Caterpillar (CAT) looks to be a major beneficiary of the lower tax rates in the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act and for a lower U.S. dollar. (See today’s encouragement of a weaker dollar from Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at Davos today.) Not that Caterpillar sales...
How much higher will a surge in new Treasury supply push bond yields? How about 2.9% on 10-year Treasuries by the end of 2018?
Another date to put on your investing calendar: January 31. That’s when the U.S. Treasury is scheduled to announced how it plans to finance the government’s huge revenue shortfall over the next three months. The betting on Wall Street is that the...
Netflix rally on earnings tells us more about how complacent this market than about Netflix
This market remains determined to rally as we head into earnings season. Look no further than the reaction to earnings from Netflix (NFLX) for evidence. The stock market could have reacted to yesterday’s earnings from Netflix (NFLX) by selling down the shares....
My eighth stock pick of Christmas is Bank of America–and eight maids a-milking
I’m adding shares of Bank of America (BAC) to my Dividend Portfolio today. The stock yields only 1.2% on trailing 12-month dividend payments so why am I adding it to a portfolio dedicated to beating the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond? Because Bank of America...
My seventh stock pick of Christmas is McDonald’s–and seven swans a-swimming
I’ve become convinced that the best way to think about McDonald’s (MCD) and other established fast-food stocks is as cyclicals. Oh, not in the usual way where the fortunes of a company rise and fall with the cycles in the economy. No, I think the...
Turmoil isn’t done in lithium sector with volatility at SQM and ALB
The announcement of a deal between Sociedad QuÃmica y Minera de Chile (SQM) and Chile’s development agency CORFO that resolves a long-standing dispute on royalty rates and that would allow SQM to expand lithium production from the brines at government-owned...
Dividend Portfolio total 2017 return 6.48%; 2 buys and 2 sells in 2018 rebalancing
2017 was a tough year for benchmarking my Dividend Portfolio. For the year the total price appreciation on the stocks in the portfolio after all buys and sells was 3.4% The 21.64% return on the Standard & Poor’s 500 crushed that. The dividend yield on the...
For shares of Bank of America and Goldman Sachs it’s all about the future
Certainly no one cheered when Bank of America (BAC) and Goldman Sachs (GS) announced big one-time hits from the recently passed tax bill, but as with JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) last week, the big deal for investors was what these huge financial...
I never like to see this kind of big intraday reversal–but it’s not that serious YET
U.S. stocks came racing out of the gates on strength in overseas markets with the Dow Jones Industrial Average trading at 26,000–283 points higher than the Friday close at one point during the day. Then came the plunge as indexes gave back all their gains and...
What will the tax cut bill do to house prices in 2018 and beyond? That’s a big deal for your portfolio
Back on January 10 when I wrote the post “Are we witnessing a market melt up? on my two subscriptions sites JubakAM.com and JuggingWithKnives.com I noted that I didn’t feel that I could move on to rebalancing individual portfolios until I’ve dealt...
Consumer Electronics Show caps great month for Synaptics
Shares of Synaptics (SYNA) closed up 13.35% today at $49.76 thanks to an upgrade to sector overweight from sector weight from KeyBanc Capital Markets and a very impressive showing for the company’s fingerprint technology for smartphones at the just concluded...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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