Fed raises interest rates a quarter of a percentage point and Yellen then talks markets in off the ledge
As is frequently the case, it’s not so much what the Federal Reserve did today as what Fed chair Janet Yellen said. At its meeting today the Fed’s Open Market Committee raised the central bank’s benchmark short-term interest rate 25 basis points to a...
Oil up today after plunge yesterday: What’s this volatility telling us?
Oil prices have bounced back this morning from yesterday’s tumble with West Texas Intermediate climbing 1.63% and the Brent international benchmark advancing 1.49% as of 11:45 a.m. New York time. The gain still leaves West Texas Intermediate below $50 a barrel...
Here’s what I’ve been writing about on my paid sites: How to tell when the bond bear market is finally at the door
Let me share a post that I put up last night on my paid sites about when the great bull market in bonds will finally turn into the great bear market in bonds. Yes, that’s sites. Plural. I’ve been busy building a second site, JugglingWithKnives.com, that...
Saudis reverse 1/3 of production cuts; oil market trembles
Saudi Arabia has told OPEC that it will not play sucker to countries that won’t meet OPEC’s targets for production cuts. Russia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates have not yet delivered the production cuts they agreed to. Saudi Arabia has said that it...
Worse than expected: 24 million people would lose health insurance by 2026, CBO estimates
Republicans working to repeal and replace Obamacare have been expecting bad news when the Congressional Budget Office began scoring the impact of their plan, the American Health Care Act. They knew that their plan would result in some number of millions of Americans...
Ahead of the Fed meeting, Wall Street wonders if Fed might hike 4 times in 2017
With the Federal Reserve likely to raise interest rates at its Wednesday, Wall Street is re-thinking its assumptions about the Fed’s actions on rates for the rest of 2017. Way back in December when the U.S. central bank raised interest rates for the first time,...
Strong February jobs report removes last doubt on Fed interest rate increase next week
The U.S. economy added 235,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported today. The department’s statisticians also revised January’s job gains upwards to 238,000. Wages grew by a year over year 2.8% The unemployment rate fell to 4.7%. (The U-6, or...
Another looming supply-side shock to the U.S. water market from the Great Lakes
Back on February 16 I wrote https://jubakpicks.com/more-than-one-third-of-u-s-households-will-struggle-to-pay-their-water-bills-within-the-next-five-years/ about a study that found that 41 million households in the United States would face unaffordable water...
Oil falls below $50; market rethinks Trump reflation trades
West Texas Intermediate was down 2.74% to $48.90 a barrel today as of noon New York time. International benchmark Brent crude was lower by 2.60% to $51.73 a barrel. The drop in West Texas Intermediate brought the price per barrel below the psychologically important...
Another down day for U.S. stocks–consensus still saying that’s a good thing
U.S. stocks closed slightly lower again today, making this week three for three on the down side. The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index was off by 0.2% at the close and the Dow tripped lower by 0.33%. The Russell 2000 small company index was down 0.64%. But...
Oil gets crushed as traders lose patience with stubbornly higher supply
“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all,” Walter Mosley wrote. Today it was “If it wasn’t for bad news, there’s be no news at all” for the oil sector. Oil prices got crushed today with U.S. benchmark West Texas...
Here’s what I’ve been writing about on my paid sites: Biotech stocks dipping just before medical meeting schedule gets heavy
Let me share a post about a trading opportunity that I put up today on my paid sites. Yes, that’s sites. Plural. I’ve been busy building a second site, JugglingWithKnives.com, that parallels the focus of my book Juggling With Knives on volatility. If you...
Markets say the European Central Bank is about a year behind the Fed in raising interest rates
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting of the European Central Bank futures markets have started to raise the odds that the bank will start raising its benchmark deposit interest rate beginning in April 2018. The market was putting the odds of an April increase at 20% last...
Buying ING in my Dividend Portfolio tomorrow
Tomorrow I’ll be adding ING Groep (ING) to my Dividend Portfolio. The Dutch-headquartered banking company pays a 4.87% yield. Five reasons to buy ING now. Three macro reasons. Growth in Europe, especially in the company’s German market, has picked up. In...
China’s growth target: More of the same but a little less
China’s government has announced its new economic growth target for 2017. At “around” 6.5% it’s just a bit lower than the 2016 target of 6.5% to 7%. China’s GDP grew by 6.7% in 2016. The slight decline in the headline growth target is...
Yellen says March interest rate increase likely to be “appropriate”
Janet Yellen’s speech today in front of the Executives’ Club of Chicago isn’t likely to disappoint those who were thinking that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates at its March 15 meeting. In her remarks Yellen said that an interest-rate...
This is a big deal: Brainard signs on with the Fed’s sooner rather than later camp
When William Dudley, head of the New York Fed, says it’s time to raise interest rates as he did on Tuesday, the financial markets go “Ho, hum.” Dudley has been in the sooner rather than later camp at the Fed for months. And he’s one of Fed...
Dollar climbs on Trump speech; markets bet on more U.S. growth and sooner rather than later interest rate increase
Today, March 1, the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index jumped 0.4%. That was a fourth straight daily gain and let the dollar close in on its highest level since January 27. With the dollar climbing, the yen fell 0.8% and the euro dropped 0.3% to $1.055. Yields on the 10-year...
Wall Street is just fine with Trump’s lack of detail, but…
Wall Street heard what it wanted to hear from President Donald Trump in his address to a joint session of Congress last night. Or to be more precise it didn’t hear anything it didn’t want to hear. Trump waved in the direction of cutting regulations,...
On Friday the Fed will make it clear what it thought of tonight’s speech by President Trump
President Donald Trump speaks tonight to a joint session of Congress. The expectation is that he will present–in general terms–a budget with a big increase for military spending and cuts to programs at departments such as the Environmental Protection...
Merck writes off $2.9 billion it spent on hepatitis C drug purchased in 2014; here’s who to watch in the biotech sector after this news
Merck (MRK) has announced that it will take a $2.9 billion charge (or $1.9 billion after taxes) and restate its fourth quarter and full year 2016 earnings (announced on February 3) to write down most of its 2014 purchase of Idenix Pharmaceuticals and its hepatitis C...So which is it? Is China a currency manipulator or not? Trump administration can’t make up its mind
On Thursday, February 23, President Donald Trump told Reuters that China is guilty of manipulating its currency to lower the price of the yuan in order to make its exports cheaper.“I think they’re grand champions at manipulation of currency. So I haven’t held back....
In minutes released today Fed says “Fairly soon” but probably not March for next interest rate increase
The Federal Reserve’s minutes from its January 31 to February 1 meeting show the odds still slightly tilted to waiting a bit longer before raising interest rates. The worries that are pushing the Fed toward some delay include uncertainty over the effects of a...
Copper headed higher? For Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold this may not end badly but it won’t end soon
Update February 22,2017. With the world’s largest copper mine at Escondida in Chile out on strike, the fight between Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold (FCX) and Indonesia is a big, big deal. Copper has already climbed above $6,000 a metric ton and the metal is...
This time the bubble is in auto loans and it looks most likely to bite carmakers
Auto debt hit a record in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Cars loans hit $1.16 trillion. That’s about $6,100 in car payments for every licensed driver in the United States. But as with the mortgage crisis,...
Nervous as we hit new high after new high? First dip, whenever, is likely to be limited
Today, February 21, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Standard & Poor’s 500, and the Russell 2000 each hit new record highs. As of Friday February 17, the &P 500 had already climbed 5% for 2017. But valuations do look stretched. The forward price to...
Selling ExxonMobil out of my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio; keeping it in my Dividend portfolio
ExxonMobil (XOM) is a hard company to characterize: it does some things so well that it has no peer and it does some things poorly enough to put the company in the middle of the oil company pack. On the very big plus side, nobody does the integration of refineries and...
Deere signals bottom for farm stocks
Deere (DE), the world’s biggest maker of farm machinery, is signaling that the worst is over in for its industry even as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is projecting another down year for farm incomes. In fiscal first quarter earnings reported today Deere said...
Here’s what I’ve been writing about on my paid sites: Reading oil prices from the futures market and a (possible) return of volatility and the VIX
Let me share two inside baseball investing posts that I put up today on my paid sites. Yes, that’s sites. Plural. I’ve been busy building a second site, JugglingWithKnives.com, that parallels the focus of my book Juggling With Knives on volatility. If you...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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