Remember, natural gas isn’t just for heating; air conditioning demand sends natural gas for August delivery up 10.2% today
There are the base-load power plants that run all the time and meet the bulk of normal electricity demand. And then there are the power plants that are only intermittently called into service when demand spikes. In the United States the majority of the plants used to...
Bad day for consumer stocks; good day for commodity shares
The Conference Board’s latest reading on consumer confidence showed consumer expectations in June fell to their lowest level since 2013. The consumer confidence index for June fell to 98.7 from 103.2 in May, below expectations for a reading of 100. The...
Everything EV was up today on news of soaring new registrations
New registrations for electric vehicles jumped 60% in the first quarter of 2022 from the first quarter of 2021. according to Experian Automotive. Electric vehicles made up an all-time record 4.6% of the total market. The news was even more positive given that overall...
A day after bad news of an economic slowdown in China, officials talk up China’s Internet giants
Today, Tuesday May 17, China’s top economic official, Vice Premier Liu He, said that the government will support the development of digital economy companies and their public stock listings. The comments delivered after a symposium with the CEOs of some of the...
Will today’s huge bounce continue into next week? Here’s my take and recommendations for Monday action
It’s easier to explain why stocks, especially technology stocks, staged a huge rally today, Friday May 13, than to predict whether or not the BIG BOUNCE will continue on Monday. But here’s my take and my recommendation for what to do on Monday....
Putting on hedges for a Russia-Ukraine conflict today (as in NOW)
I only recommend options on my subscription sites JubakAm.Com and JugglingWithknives.com. And this week on those sites I’ve closed the two VIX CALL Options I bought back on December 31 as protection (and potential profits) from an increase in market volatility...
So far it’s just a typical September slump
I found myself humming “I scare myself” this morning as the market continued its September selling. The Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks song pretty much sums up the market action this morning. We all know that stocks go down in September so we’re sending...
Rotation turns to general selling
At 11:07 a.m. today the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 0.80%. At the close it was down 0.55%. Same picture for the small cap Russell 2000 index. Up 1.65% at 10:54 a.m. New York time. Down 2.26% at the close. What looked like one of the rotation markets...
This market is way, way too complacent
The VIX, the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index, gained 11% today to close at 26.03. But the index, which measures how much investors and traders are wiling to pay in the options market to hedge risk on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index of stocks looking out...
Market overlooks GDP headlines today–mostly
As of the close today, October 29, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up “just” 1.17%. (The NASDAQ Composite had gained 1.64% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average had picked up 0.52%) I say “just” because after yesterday’s 3.53%...
Autoliv beats on prospects for global auto recovery–but I think you’ve got better stocks to play this trend
Autoliv (ALV) reported third quarter earnings per share of either $1.48 (non-GAAP) or $1.12 (GAAP). (GAAP is generally accepted accounting principles.) That consensus was $1.09 a share on Wall Street. Revenue of $2.04 billion was in line with expectations and up 0.5%...
Gold hits a record: Now what?
Spot gold hit an all-time high today to close at $1991.40 an ounce. In July gold rose 11%, the most since 2012. And now even investors and traders who never own gold are looking at the metal and say, “Should I buy? Will it rally some more?” In my opinion...
Banks start off earnings season by pouring cold water on V-shaped recovery
“I don’t think anybody should leave any bank earnings call this quarter simply feeling like the worst is absolutely behind us and it’s a rosy path ahead,” Citigroup (C) CEO Michael Corbat said this morning as he announced the bank’s second quarter earnings. “We...
New claims for unemployment rise by 1.54 million for week ended June 6
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits continued to trend lower with 1.54 million workers applying in the week ended June 6. That’s down from 1.9 million initial claims in the prior week. (Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected 1.55 million...
Disney misses Wall Street projections on earnings; signals worse to come
How did Wall Street analysts get Disney (DIS) earnings today so wrong? Analysts had been projecting earnings of 86 cents a share. The company reported earnings of just 60 cents for the company’s second quarter. The bigger-than-Disney takeaway here is...
Disney delays release dates on entire Marvel movie slate–including Black Widow
You know that Disney (DIS) is really serious about the likelihood of continued social distancing measures disrupting movie going for months when it delays the release date of Black Widow, once intended as the tentpole of its summer schedule. Black Widow has been...
GM dividend looks safe for now after credit line draw down
General Motors (GM) drew down its $16 billion credit line today to maximize its financial cushion as the auto industry headed into a very uncertain future. The $16 billion drawdown adds to the $16 billion in cash that General Motors projects to have on hand by the end...
Selling HDFC Bank out of 50 Stocks Portfolio as India declares coronavirus lockdown
In normal markets I don’t sell stocks out of my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio on changes in market direction. This is definitely a buy-and-hold-ish portfolio. But these aren’t normal times either for financial markets or economies and today, March 24,...
In a bear market panic, it’s really, really hard to figure which way stocks will jump on any particular day.
Yesterday, I sold my Put options on Nvidia (NVDA) and Apple (AAPL) with gains of around 100% in each since I added them to my Volatility Portfolio (on my subscription JugglingwithKnives.com and JubakAM.com sites) on March 10. I’d bought those Puts in order to...
Think the Fed got everyone’s attention with a Sunday night interest rate cut to 0%?
On Sunday night the Federal Reserve announced that it would cut interest rates to 0% (actually a policy range of 0% to 0.25%) from the current 1.00% to 1.25% range. The central bank will also resume its program of quantitative easing by buying at least $700 billion in...
Selling Nvidia today out of Jubak Picks Portfolio on belief that the downturn isn’t done
I’m taking advantage of the “Hope the White House has a plan” rally today to sell Nvidia (NVDA) out of my Jubak Picks Portfolio. Nvidia shares are up 3.05% as of 2:35 p.m. today, March 10, for a gain of $7.44 a share to $252.92. The shares are up...
They shoot momentum stocks don’t they?
The last two days of a plunging stock market on fears that the outbreak of coronavirus will last longer and spread farther than previously imagined have taken a huge chunk out of some momentum stocks. Just today shares of Nvidia (NVDA) fell another 4.11%, Twilio...
I think today is just a pause in the China-coronavirus selling; I’m selling China Southern Airlines out of my 50 Stocks Portfolio today on the bounce.
Airline stocks have been among the hardest hit equities in the coronavirus selling. As the biggest airline in China and indeed in all of Asia China Southern Airlines (ZNH) has sold off especially quickly. The New York traded ADRs sold at $35.41 on January 14 and were...
Stocks fall, Treasuries climb on signs that respiratory virus in China is now spreading person to person
News that a mysterious respiratory virus in China has infected medical workers, a sign that the virus has entered a new phase wherein it spreads from person to person, rocked Asian financial markets today. The death toll has climbed to six and China today raised the...
With a China trade truce in place, the U.S.-European trade war moves to front burner
Well, that certainly didn’t take long. With the ink barely dry on the Part 1 trade agreement between the United States and China, the European Union said that the deal could violate the rules of the World Trade Organization. EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said...
Another debt warning from the World Bank–and it won’t be the last
Today in its semi-annual report Global Economic Prospect, the World Bank warned, again, of the risk of a new global debt crisis as a result of the biggest buildup in borrowing in the past 50 years. Of the four waves of debt accumulation since the 1970s, the current...
iPhone sales in China show double-digit growth in December
Apple’s iPhone shipments in China grew 18.7% year over year in December to roughly 3.18 million units, according to Bloomberg. (Bloomberg’s calculations are based on data from the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, a government...
Tariff news from China today should be enough to feed rally in holiday markets
We’ve got two short weeks coming up–since the New York markets are closed this week for Christmas and next week for New Year’s–when trading volumes shrink and it doesn’t take much in the way of news to move stocks up or down. I think we...
Could collapse of U.S.-China trade talks trigger a second Federal Reserve Put?
You’re aware, I hope, of the idea that there’s an implicit Federal Reserve put that undergirds a stock market trading near record highs. The idea is that Fed chair Jerome Powell, would move to cut interest rates to support stocks if the market looked like...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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