People’s Bank moves to juice China’s economy earlier than I expected
Today, the People’s Bank of China cut its key interest rate for the first time in almost two years to help support China’s economy. The People’s Bank of China lowered the rate at which it provides one-year loans to banks by 10 basis points. Not a huge...Big banks deliver mixed start to Q4 earnings season with JPMorgan down and Wells Fargo up
Sing along: One of these banks is not like the others. One of these banks doesn’t belong. This morning big money center banks JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Citigroup (C) delivered disappointing reports on fourth quarter revenue and earnings. Shares of JPMorgan Chase...
Buying Wells Fargo in Jubak Picks ahead of earnings
Wells Fargo (WFC) is scheduled to report fourth quarter 2021 earnings on Friday, January 14. The bank is expected to be one of the few big money center banks to show a significant increase in earnings for the lat quarter of 2021 from the fourth quarter of 2020 (when...
Performance report for Dividend Portfolio for 2021–total return for 2021 was 18.59% and dividend yield was 3.13%
One of my many New Year’s resolutions (I get pretty granular. Poor Richard has nothing on me when it comes to goal setting for self-improvement) was to do a better job of keeping the performance reports of my portfolios up to date. I’ve fallen two years...
Markets don’t like what they hear in Fed minutes from December
Today, the Federal Reserve released its minutes from its December 15 meeting of its interest-rate setting body the Federal Open Market Committee. Investors and traders didn’t like what they thought they heard–a growing consensus on a first interest rate...
Should you invest in China now? Attacking the puzzle with buys on Monday of TCEHY and FXI
In other years, this would be a no-brainer Yes! What we have right now is a classic, tried-and-true set up for big gains from buying China stocks. China is near the end, probably, of a big sell off. We’re talking drops of 20% or more. Much more. Market leaders...
There looks to be enough fuel for the Santa Claus rally
Judging from the close of Monday’s trading session, there looks to be enough fuel for a Santa Claus rally to end 2021. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 1.38% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.98%. The NASDAQ Composite was ahead by 1.39%...
New claims for unemployment stay at low 205,000 despite Omicron–unfortunately the number doesn’t mean much
205,000 workers filed initial claims for unemployment benefits last week. That was the same as in the prior week. And not far off the five-decade low recorded earlier in December. Which is good news considering the threat of the Omicron Variant to the economy. Except...
What’s ahead for the stock market (and investors) in 2022? Here’s what to look for to drive the year
Looking ahead at 2022, it’s not too hard to list the forces that will drive the financial markets. Putting those forces together and blocking out a schedule for their effects on the stock market? Well, that’s a lot harder. But let me try. Here’s my...
CPI inflation ran at 6.8% annual rate in November–exactly what economists had projected so stocks moved higher
Stocks rose today, December 10, as a huge jump in CPI inflation exactly matched economists’ projections. As they say on the basketball court, “No surprise; no foul.” The Consumer Price Index (CPI) climbed at a 6.8% annual rate in November....
Market holds reasonably steady ahead of tomorrow’s CPI report expected to show 6.8% annual inflation rate
Tomorrow’s inflation report–the Consumer Price Index (CPI) flavor–has the potential to end the recent uptick in stocks and send prices back down and volatility back up. Right now economists surveyed by Bloomberg are expecting a year over year...
Remember that volatility creates volatility–time to look to some tax loss selling (like Nektar)
With the VIX “fear index” falling back closer to “normal” levels–it dropped to 21.89 yesterday from 31.12 on December 1–it sure feels like the extreme volatility of the end of November and early December is on the ebb. The move to...
Adding Bristol-Myers Squibb to my Jubak Picks Portfolio tomorrow
As I noted in my posts over the weekend, I think that along with all the general volatility and the rotation away from high moment and higher price-to-earnings ratio technology stocks, the last week or so saw a rotation into “safe” haven stocks such as...
Be careful out there: This is one insanely volatile market both on the up and down sides
Want to know exactly how volatile the stock market is right now? Yesterday investors and traders got news that the first case of the Omicron Variant had been recorded in California. On that, and some “We’ll tighten sooner than expected” remarks from...
A stock isn’t a buy just because it’s cheaper than it was–Lessons from Disney on when to buy on the dip
After a huge rally like we’re had this year, it’s easy to fall into one of the most common buy on the dip traps. Just because a stock is cheaper than it was, it’s not necessarily a bargain. There’s nothing that says a stock has to return to its...
Federal Reserve’s Powell stops calling inflation “transitory” and stocks tank–except for Apple
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell retired the word “transitory” to describe stubbornly high inflation in testimony today in front of the Senate Banking Committee. And, Powell continued, the Fed might accelerate the pace at which it is winding down its purchase of...
Apple, Amazon, Alphabet,Adobe, Applied Materials and other big techs rally hard–rest of stocks not so much
Today, Monday November 29, it’s a tale of two bounces from Friday’s big sell off. Technology stocks and especially big technology stocks are up big. At the close in New York Applied Materials was up 5.53%. Adobe (ADBE) was ahead 3.83%. Nvidia (NVDA) was...
A Biden vote of confidence in Powell at the Fed is a vote of no confidence in the economy
I realize this is very contrarian, but… This morning President Joe Biden announced that he will renominate Jerome Powell to another four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Wall Street sounds like it’s generally happy with the...
I’m looking for a test of Friday’s rotation into tech stocks
This week I expect a test of the Friday’s rotation into technology stocks and away from anything that depends on economies remaining relatively free of Pandemic restrictions. On Friday, the winners were technology shares–Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Nvidia, for...
Watch my YouTube video: The rally narrows–or does it?
I’m starting up my videos again–this time using YouTube as a platform. My seventieth YouTube video “The rally narrows–or does it?” went up today. Please watch and subscribe to my YouTube channel. And like my video. Here’s the...
October retail sales come in with 1.7% increase from September, most in 7 months
U.S. retail sales rose in October for a third month. The value of overall retail purchases increased 1.7% last month, the most in seven months, the Commerce Department said today, November 16. Excluding gas and motor vehicles, sales gained 1.4% in October. The figures...
My picks for infrastructure stocks after Congress finally acts
There was a mad scramble today as Wall Street tried to identify the winners from the $1.2 trillion ($550 billion in new money) infrastructure bill passed by the House of Representatives (finally) late on Friday night. President Joe Biden will sign the bill, which...
Tomorrow’s September jobs number is the BIG DEAL for this week
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg are expecting the economy to have added 500,000 jobs in September. Anything way above or way below the number will move expectations on when the Federal Reserve will begin to reduce its monthly purchases of Treasuries and...
Buy-the-dippers are showing a little fatigue
After Monday’s selling, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was down 5.2% from its September 2 high. And as has been usual lately that drop brought the buy-the-dip investors and traders out in force today, Tuesday, October 5 At the close the Standard &...
More Evergrande woes in China but biggest selling is in U.S. tech stocks
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange suspended trading in shares of China Evergrande after the Chinese developer missed a key bond interest payment last week. That’s led to selling across Chinese stocks with, as of the close in New York, shares of Alibaba (BABA),...
Netflix misses badly on subscription growth
This won’t help an already nervous market one bit. Today, April 20, after the close Netflix (NFLX) reported first-quarter subscriber growth way below projections. The stock was down 1.21% in after-hours trading as of 4:30 p.m. New York time. Revenue of $7.16...
Fed to end restrictions on bank dividends, share buybacks at end of June
U.S. banks that pass their next stress tests will allowed to raise their dividends after June 30, the Federal Reserve said yesterday, March 25. The Fed will also lift any remaining restrictions on stock buybacks. Limits on dividend payouts to investors and share...
This week’s Treasury auctions start off smoothly–what does it mean if yields and stocks are down?
This weeks long list of Treasury auctions started off with a very good sale of $60 billion in two-year notes today. Today’s sale came with a yield of 0.152%–yep that’s where interest rates are right now–on the two year note. That matched the...
Everything is down this morning! I’m nibbling at these stocks
Yesterday tech tumbled but utilities, commodities like copper and even gold, and many “vaccine recovery” plays gained. Today almost everything is down. Which to me is a sign that this now 6-day downturn is getting closer to an end. Right now, as of 1:30...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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