Oil rallies on actual inventory numbers after falling yesterday on projections
The Energy Information Administration reported today that U.S. oil inventories at the Cushing, Oklahoma hub fell by 2.3 million barrels. That was the biggest draw down in inventory at Cushing in three months. Supplies at the Cushing Hub reflect production in the U.S....
Senate passes Hong Kong support bill, House to take it up today scrambling China trade talks
As you might imagine, this complicates things. Just as U.S. and Chinese negotiators struggle to put together a Part 1 deal to de-escalate the U.S.-China trade war, the two houses of the U.S. Congress are moving to pass legislation that would support pro-democracy...
Oil prices under pressure as OPEC meeting looms
Oil prices are down significantly today, November 19, on speculation that data to be released tomorrow will show a fourth straight weekly increase in U.S. oil inventories and nervousness about a successful conclusion to U.S.-China Part 1 trade talks. As of 1:30 p.m....
Tech stocks acting like they’re good to rally to the end of the year
I’m using my Volatility Portfolio pick Cirrus Logic (CRUS) as an indicator of the trend in technology stocks–particularly chip stocks–through the end of 2019. (I track this portfolio on my subscription sites JubakAM.com and JugglingWithKnives.com.)...
Ho, hum–another day, another all time high driven by FOMO
Today, Monday November 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its first new all-time high since July. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and the NASDAQ Composite also saw new highs. Stocks gave up some of their gains into the close but the Dow still finished up...
Oil earnings expected to disappoint starting with BP tomorrow and then continuing with ExxonMobil and Chevron on Friday
The oil supermajors–ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX),Royal Dutch Shell (RDS), Total (TOT) and BP (BP)–are expected to show a 42% year over year average plummet in third quarter earnings when they report earnings this week. That’s an even bigger slump...
Consumers look to be holding up but I wouldn’t call them super-positive
The University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment was revised down to 95.5 in October from an initial reading of 96 today. That leaves the index at the monthly average for 2019. But well below the post-recession peak of 101.4 set in early 2018. Consumer...
Beyond Meat takes another beating on worries about next round of insider selling
Shares of Beyond Meat (BYND) dropped 7.99% to close below $100 (at $97.90) for the first time since June 3. The drop cut gains for the plant-based “meat” company since its IPO to a mere 292%. Driving the drop are fears that insiders will sell a day after...
A tale of two tech markets as Texas Instruments and Apple move in opposite directions.
Shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) closed down 7.48% today after the company reported that third-quarter earning felt $1.49 a share from $1.58 a share in the third quarter of 2018. Revenue dropped 11% year over year. On the other hand, shares of Apple continued to move...
Enthusiasm for this quarter’s earnings; worry about guidance for 2020
Today the Standard & Poor’s 500 matched a 12-week high and made yet another assault on a new all-time record. Better than expected earnings have been the market driver. Some 81% of the S&P 500 companies that have reported for the quarter so far have...
So how’s my “Tech is back” call (and picks of SWKS and CRUS) doing?
On October 8 I wrote “Tech is back” led by fact-based speculation that Apple (AAPL) had asked supplier to increase production of components for the iPhone 11 by 10%. That, obviously, was a good sign for Apple, which is set to announce earnings on October...
Wall Street puts two more 2019 interest rate cuts back on the table
Yesterday’s disappointing Purchasing Managers Index news on U.S. manufacturing has put two interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve back on Wall Street’s expectations.(Economists had expected that the PMI number for September would show the...
U.S. manufacturing disappoints with continuing contraction for September
All the major U.S. stock indexes fell today as the Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index for Manufacturing disappointed by sinking further into contraction territory. At 47.8 for September, the index hit a 10-year low. Economists surveyed by...
China’s economy continues to weaken
The manufacturing sector–thanks to the U.S.-China trade war–continues to slow China’s economy. But the real problem may be an underperformance in the services sector that makes it impossible for that sector to pick up the slack. The end result is that the...
Financial markets still showing signs of indigestion in debt auctions so Fed will pump another $75 billion into money markets tomorrow
Today, Friday, September 20, the Federal Reserve will buy another $75 billion in the overnight repo market. That brings the total this week to $203 billion in the Fed’s effort to stabilize the short-term markets that Wall Street uses to finance its purchases of...
Barrick Gold at the junction of positive macro and micro trends; raising my target price
It’s by no means a guarantee of gains, but owing shares of a company that is riding the wave of positive macro and micro trends does indeed usually result in solid profits. On the macro side, Barrick Gold has global trends pointing toward toward higher gold...Another index shows U.S. manufacturing in contraction
The Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index fell to 49.1 in August, according to data released this morning. That was below all the forecasts of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In this survey anything below 50 indicates that a sector is...
Recession expectations slowly climbing–slowly driving odds of a recession higher
Recessions have a huge “sentiment” component in their causation. Consumers and CEOs look around at the economy, assess their feelings about the future economy, and decide that the prudent course is to cut back on spending to prepare for the coming economic...
Market rides energy shares higher
This morning the U.S. Energy Information Administration surprised the markets with the report of a bigger than expected decline in oil stockpiles. Crude inventories fell by 10 million barrels for the week ended August 16. The prior week showed a drawdown of 2.7...
It’s just analysis, but reports say China’s Xi has a Trump trust problem
With the proviso that no one is inside the head of Chinese President Xi Jinping (except Xi himself) and that this is all speculative analysis which carries it’s own bias, I think it’s worth taking seriously reports that Xi may have a Trump problem that...
Apple sketches in September product launches–will they be enough?
Two big clouds of doubt hover over shares of Apple (AAPL). First, will the continuing U.S.-China trade war take another bite out of Apple’s China revenue? And/Or disrupt Apple’s China supply chain, saddling the company with higher tariffs on its made in...No consensus at the Fed in July for faster interest rate cuts, minutes show
The financial market didn’t get what it had hoped for out of today’s release of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s July 31 meeting. The market was hoping for something in the minutes that pointed toward a shift in Fed policy toward an extended...
Markets bet that Fed will follow ECB this week to announce something “spectacular”
Gotta love that financial market enthusiasm for central banks. Last week the markets rallied on signals from the European Central Bank that it would cut its key interest rate–now at a negative 0.40%–to a negative -0.50%, lower the rates that banks pay to...
The drop in job openings worries me more than an inverted yield curve
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 800.49 points today, or 3.05%; the Standard & Poor’s 500 finished 2.93% lower; and the NASDAQ Composite lost 3.02%. One reason for the plunge was an intraday inversion in the Treasury yield curve with the yield...
Nektar’s plunge is a buying opportunity–so I’m adding more to my Volatility Portfolio
What we know about Nektar Therapeutics (NKTR) is pretty clear. On Thursday of last week, August 8, trading in shares of Nektar were halted on news from the company had manufacturing problems that resulted in some patients enrolled in the clinical trials for the...
Names may never hurt me but they sure count in the U.S.-China trade war
The United States has called China a “thuggish regime” after the country labelled a U.S. diplomat who met with Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, a “black hand.” Along with charges that the meeting showed the United States was...
A rally in tech shares disguises return to risk off trading
Shares of Apple (AAPL) climbed 0.21% to lead the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) higher by 0.40% as of 2 p.m. trading in New York. That helped disguise what is otherwise a return to the risk off trading of Monday after Tuesday’s rally–although with...
No let up in President Trump’s pressure on the Fed to cut interest rates faster
More tweets today from President Donald Trump in his campaign to pressure the Federal Reserve into more aggressive cuts to interest rates. “Incompetence is a terrible thing to watch, especially when things could be taken care of sooo easily. We will WIN anyway,” the...
People’s Bank signals its goal of an orderly retreat in China’s yuan, and markets recover–somewhat
Stocks rallied today on signs that the People’s Bank intends to deliver an orderly drop in China’s currency. This morning the yuan traded slightly above the critical 7 yuan to the dollar currency band. And the bank said it will sell $4.2 billion in yuan...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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