Portfolio data problems on all portfolios and on all my sites
My deepest apologies but we’re having problems updating the price data on my four portfolios on this and on all my other sites. The problem, which is now about 36 hours old, results from a change in the interface that Yahoo Finance uses to deliver its data to...
Celebrate 20 years of Jubak Picks and use your 30-days of free access to my $199 paid JubakAM.com site to read my take on tomorrow’s market volatility
Usually I’d be teasing my post on my paid JubakAM.site here and telling you to subscribe if you want to read all of what I think tomorrow will bring after today’s extraordinary volatility. The Dow Industrials fell 372 points and the VIX volatility index...
Tencent earnings show growth of company’s China media power
Today, May 17, China’s Tencent Holdings(TCEHY)Â reported a 58% increase in first quarter profit on a 55% increase in revenue. The company’s WeChat app is now the world’s third-largest personal messaging app after Facebook’s WhatsApp and...
Markets rediscover risk–for a day anyway
This morning it looks like the combination of turmoil in Washington and some weak economic data have led traders and investors to take money out of risk assets and put money into safe havens. As of 11:40 a.m. New York time, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was off...
Celebrate 20 years of Jubak Picks with 30-days of free access to my $199 paid JubakAM.com site–where the first two closed picks to my new Volatility Portfolio gained 36.9% and 49.1%
I think if you try my paid site, you’ll like it. What’s not to like, after all, about the 36.9% gain in a month on Facebook options or the 49.1% gain, again in a month, on shares of Nektar Therapeutics. Those were the first two closed picks in my new...
China bullish infrastructure rhetoric overshadows weak economic data
Add China to the list of those markets (oil being another example) where rhetoric is more important for setting market direction than data. Yesterday the Chinese government released generally disappointing economic numbers. Industrial output, for example, rose by 6.5%...
Oil climbs as Saudis, Russians agree on continued production cuts
It still has to be ratified at the May 25 meeting of all OPEC members, but it looks like Saudi Arabia and Russia have agree to extend current production cuts past their June expiration. At least the oil market certainly believes that’s the case. U.S. benchmark...
Celebrate 20 years of Jubak Picks with a free month of my $199 paid JubakAM.com site (Plus 20% off if you subscribe)
I remember filing my first Jubak Picks stock pick at Microsoft’s MSN Money like it was yesterday. (Down to the watery Redmond, Washington sunshine.) But it wasn’t yesterday. The first post went up 20 years ago this month. Boy, time sure flies when...
Cheniere Energy pops on possibility of increased China exports
Earlier this week the Trump administration announced that it had reached an agreement with China to increase market access for U.S. energy companies. Today Cheniere Energy (LNG) noted that it has had extensive negotiations with Chinese state-owned companies about...
New tax proposal knocks back shares of Australian banks including my Dividend Portfolio pick Westpac Banking
The new Australian federal budget includes a 6 basis point (100 basis points equal one percentage point) annual tax on liabilities at the country’s five biggest banks. The tax would apply to liabilities including senior bonds, covered bonds, subordinated bonds...
Freeport McMoRan and Indonesia agree to extend agreement deadline for another 6 months
The stakes are so high that a deal is almost a certainty. Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold  (FCX) needs the copper production from the giant Grasberg mine, the second largest in the world. The government of Indonesia needs the revenue it gains from Grasberg....
Fed has June 14 interest rate increase in its crosshairs
The Federal Reserve is certainly behaving like it will raise interest rates another 25 basis points at the June 14 meeting of the Open Market Committee. The U.S. central bank raised its target for the Fed funds rate to 0.75%-1% at its March meeting. The financial...
Oil pushes higher on inventory report and global markets (except for China) follow
U.S. inventories of crude fell by 5.25 million barrels for the week ended May 5, according U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oil analysts had expected a smaller draw of 1.8 million to 2 million barrels. That was enough to fuel a big rally in oil prices with the...
Oil back down this morning as “hedgies” reposition
So much for Monday’s oil rally. This morning, a day after Russia and Saudi Arabia succeeded in talking up oil prices with promises that OPEC and allied non-OPEC producers would extend the current production cuts past their June expiration until the end of 2017,...
Price is right on Coach acquisition of Kate Spade
The price is right. The strategy makes sense. Now it’s up to the management team at Coach (COH) to execute. Yesterday, May 8, Coach announced that it would buy Kate Spade (KATE) for $18.50 a share. That’s a 27.5% premium on the December 2016 price for the...
Watch out for volatility around Friday’s CPI inflation report
Friday’s Consumer Price Index release will have extraordinary power. Maybe even enough to move the financial markets. Ordinarily, the monthly report of inflation in the Consumer Price Index isn’t a market-shaking event. The CPI isn’t the inflation...
Macron swamps Le Pen but Euro markets retreat
And now comes the hard part. Centrist newcomer Emmanuel Macron trounced far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s vote for president of France. Macron won 66.1% of the vote in the two-person run off. The political and business leaders of France and the...
NASDAQ tops all-time high: Does that signal a correction?
Thus was supposed to be automatically posted while I was out hiking the Appalachian Trail last week. It ran afoul of a software glitch (mine, I think.) I wrote this before I left on my hike. Since I wasn’t eaten by bears, I’ll be back posting as usual...
Can Congress keep its eyes on the prize this week?
Really, this ought to be a no-drama, no-brainer. On Friday Congress passed a one-week extension so that it could write a clean extension of the government’s spending authorization to take Washington through the end of the fiscal year in September. The agreement...
U.S. GDP growth rate a tepid 0.7% in first quarter
The U.S. economy expanded at an annualized pace of 0.7% in the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported this morning. That’s the slowest pace in three years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for growth of better than 1%. The Atlanta...
One week deal to extend the spending deadline looks in place as of 11 p.m. Thursday night
The deal would only extend government spending authority for a week beyond the April 28 deadline, the Washington Post is reporting, but even that would be a major achievement given all the last minute monkey wrenches thrown into the negotiations. A week’s...
Will these beats by Microsoft, Intel, Alphabet and Amazon be enough for the market tomorrow?
Today was a big earnings day and four of the bellwether stocks reporting beat Wall Street expectations on earnings for the first quarter. Will those beats be enough for the market tomorrow or will we get a sell on the good news reaction? Here are the results, the...
Weak economic data ahead of first quarter GDP report tomorrow
Modestly disappointing economic numbers were released today ahead of tomorrow’s report on first quarter GDP. Not that much seems to matter with the market transfixed by wrangling in Washington over a potential government shutdown, a possible Saturday vote in the...
Lack of detail in Trump tax plan significant negative to markets
When the Trump administration unveiled the scant details of its tax plan at 1:30 p.m. in Washington, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stood at 2393.63, up from 2387.49 at the open. In the next few minutes the index moved up to 2397.44 as of 1:45 p.m. and then...
Odds on avoiding a government shutdown improve as White House backs away on demand to fund The Wall
Last night President Donald Trump backed off his demand that any deal to fund the federal government include money to start construction on The Wall. At an event with conservative journalists, Trump said he’s okay waiting until September to have this fight. Which...
China’s markets are in the midst of a minor–so far–correction
While financial markets have been celebrating the results of the French presidential election with a global risk on rally, Chinese markets have been going through a correction over the last week or so. Before the tiny move up today–on April 25 the Shanghai...
Sell Bristol-Myers Squibb before Thursday’s earnings report
I’m selling Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) out of my Jubak Picks portfolio ahead of Thursday’s report of first quarter earnings. I’m afraid that earnings will confirm what monthly sales reports from Bristol-Myers and competitors have outlined: That the...
Hello! The real economy comes calling this week
Amidst all the guessing about what Congress and the President will do this week to head off a possible government shutdown when spending authorization ends on April 28–and all the speculation about how financial markets will react–we should remember that...
It’s all Washington, all the time this week as Congress slouches toward April 28 deadline
With the first round voting in the French presidential election out of the way, it will be all Congress (and the White House) all the time this week as the clock ticks down to a possible government shut down when spending authority runs out on April 28. The most...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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