Taking the hunt for bigger dividends beyond the usual suspects
It’s getting harder and harder to find a stock that pays a decent dividend. At least if you look in the usual places. What’s that you say? Look in the un-usual places? Couldn’t agree more. That’s exactly what I’m aiming to do here. The name of the song the market’s...The Greek crisis goes on and on an on–with no light at the end of the tunnel
“A default is not an issue for Greece,” Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, told a press conference in Frankfurt today, April 8. The bond market begs to differ. Greek bonds sold off today bringing the yield premium to benchmark German bonds to...Good luck with that–now some Chinese importers want a boycott to protest Vale, Rio Tinto, and Billiton's iron ore monopoly
Now this seems like a bad idea. Some of China’s iron ore traders are suspending imports of ore from Vale (VALE), Rio Tinto (RTP), and BHP Billiton (BHP), the three companies that dominate the world’s iron ore production. The decision to stop importing ore, China’s...China takes another step toward fighting inflation, ending its currency peg
The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, will sell three-year bills for the first time since June 2008. The sale is a likely precursor to either an increase in official interest rates by the central bank or an end to the renminbi/dollar currency peg. In...The renminbi moves closer to climbing against the dollar
It looks like the fix is in. The governments in Beijing and Washington look like they’re figured out a formula that will lead, sooner rather than later, to an end to the renminbi/dollar peg and the appreciation of China’s currency versus the dollar. Sooner, I’d say,...Treasury yields hit 4% but the climb looks very gradual from here
Yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note hit 4% yesterday for the first time since June. And I think yields will keep rising in the months ahead. But the United States is getting lucky. Thanks to the damage the Greek debt crisis has done to the euro, I think the rise...Are stocks headed for an earnings season of selling on the good news?
Beware the Ides of April. As that well known Roman risk taker Julius Caesar found out many quarters ago, living up to expectations can be a tough job. And the crowd can take it out of your hide whether you do or don’t. All that applies to the upcoming earnings...First, let's liquidate all the cash cow oil companies
The sky is falling. Apocalypse is around the corner. It’s the end of civilization as we know it. ConocoPhillips (COP) is going to simply close up shop liquidate its assets, and distribute them to shareholders. I wish. It would be cheery to see a CEO admit that the...When will rising commodity prices threaten the economic recovery?
Ah, if it were only iron ore. The big three companies that dominate the world iron ore market—Vale (VALE), Rio Tinto (RTP), and BHP Billiton (BHP)—have won price increases of 80% to 100% from Asian steelmakers. Like it or not, European steelmakers will have to fall in...So, yes, we've got an economic recovery, but how strong is still an open question
Not so fast, okay? Friday’s news that the U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March was indeed good news. I think it does mean that an economic recovery is indeed underway. But that’s always been just one of the three big questions about the economy as it recovers from...U.S. interest rates are rising–and 4% on 10-year Treasuries is in sight again
Have you noticed that long-term U.S. interest rates have been inching upwards even as the Federal Reserve holds its short-term target at 0% to 0.25%? Yields on the 10-year Treasury bond finished last week at 3.95% on Friday, April 2. That’s within an eyelash of the...Good news from Oracle is better news for the U.S. economy
There wasn’t anything wrong with the earnings results that Oracle (ORCL) announced yesterday. For the company’s fiscal third quarter, which ended in February, revenue climbed to $6.5 billion, up 18% from the third quarter of fiscal 2009. (Excluding currency effects...Coming to a Wal-Mart near you: Inflation from China
Inflation. It’s different this time. It’s still got the same old causes: too much money pumped into the economy, huge economic stimulus that’s causing a shortage of goods and labor in some sectors, budget deficits and long-term debt that’s spiraling out of control and...Faster than a speeding bullet train: Three high-speed rail plays to put on your watch list
I’ve got three high-speed train stocks to tell you about—and U.S.-based investors can actually put money into one of them. (And I’ll give you a second U.S. rail equipment stock to consider.) Why not all three? Because the rising stars of the new generation of...The indicators are pointing? Well, they're confusing
Stocks keep going up. But the market indicators are getting stranger and stranger. On the one hand, the VIX, the S&P 500 Volatility Index, commonly called the “fear index” because it’s a measure of how nervous investors are, is back to levels of complacency that...How do you invest in a country such as China that's making up the law as it goes along?
Strange doings in China. And they should have you scratching your head and asking “How do you invest in this market?” I’m not talking about Google’s (GOOG) decision to stop self-censoring its China search engine and retreat to Hong Kong in the hope, delusional I...Will April bring higher interest rates in Brazil?
Brazil is about to join China and India in fighting inflation. On March 17 the Brazilian central bank, Banco Central do Brazil, surprised pretty much every economist in the country by holding its benchmark interest rate steady. But that’s just raised their...Winners in banking's new world order
All we need is Will Smith and some zombies. Tattered for rent signs hang in the windows of the building that once housed Bear Stearns. All that’s left of Lehman Bros. is a digital crawl that endlessly cycles news. American International Group keeps itself alive by...Can they love Asian stocks to death?
You’ve been warned about the next bubble. (Don’t panic yet. It looks like it’s a way off.) A recent survey of 109 institutional investors based in Asia and Europe, commissioned by Fidelity from the Economist Intelligence Unit, shows that 63% of respondents plan to...Fortunes turn: Now it's Boeing gaining on Airbus problems
It’s always good news for a company when a competitor admits that it has potential issues with a technology crucial to a new product. This time the competitor making the admission was EADS, the parent of Airbus, telling Wall Street analysts On Friday, March 19, that...What's on the agenda after healthcare?
While Republicans battled Democrats (and Democrats battled themselves) over healthcare, not much of anything else got done. Not reform of the financial system, not serious action on jobs (the $18 billion “jobs” bill that Congress did pass isn’t even a down payment),...Inflation is breaking loose in China and India
The inflation news from the United States was absolutely benign yesterday, March 18. Can’t say the same for a big piece of the developing world. Inflation is on the loose from China to India. The only question is Will somebody important to the global economy wreck...How long can this last? The U.S. stock market is out performing the world
I can think of a dozen reasons why in the long term U.S. stocks will underperform stocks in China, Brazil, India, Canada may be even Norway, South Africa, Germany, and Turkey. Huge government debt, highly leveraged consumers, under-investment in infrastructure, a...Grim budget fairy tales from Europe
The European Commission took Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom out back to the woodshed for a financial thrashing yesterday, March 17. Now let’s see if the bond market was paying attention. The bureaucrats in Brussels essentially called the...Get ready for a re-run of the Greek budget crisis
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but we all know that the Greek budget crisis hasn’t been resolved, right? It’s merely been postponed until April and May. That’s when Greece has to refinance $27 billion in debt. (Doesn’t seem like much? Well, if you scaled...This rally believes the economy will add jobs in March; do you?
Beware rising expectations. Much of the current rally in U.S. stocks—the S&P 500 Stock Index was up 10% from the February 8 low as of the close yesterday, March 16—is based on a belief that the U.S. economy will continue the strong recovery foreshadowed by the...Fed holds interest rates near 0% but continues to reduce role in the markets
Yes, the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee kept its interest rate target and language intact in today’s (March 16) statement: “The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic...How Vale spent $18 billion and shot itself in the foot
I always wonder what’s up when I see a normally quiet company begin tooting its own horn in ads. It’s almost never a good sign. Today’s (March 16) Financial Times has a full page ad from Vale (VALE) headlined “Vale also transforms minerals into awards.” The text notes...The trends still point to $200 a barrel oil–even if when remains a bit unclear
Whatever happened to $200 a barrel oil? Maybe it’s just been delayed in transit. A recession in the world’s developed economies can do that. Remember Arjun Murti’s time in the sun when, back in May 2008, the analyst at Goldman Sachs predicted that oil would soon hit...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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