A much better day than modest gains in the indexes indicate
The Standard & Poor’s 500 finished up 0.29% today. The tech- and bank-heavy NASDAQ Composite was up 0.54%. The Small Cap Russell 2000 was ahead 0.79%. Always good to finish to the upside, of course, when you’re looking for the end of a dip (and...
Can Apple, Facebook, Alibaba keep the earnings bandwagon rolling?
Another very heavy week for earnings will reach a crescendo on Thursday, November 2. The excitement isn’t surprising after the huge earnings that Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and Intel (INTC) delivered this past Thursday, October 26. This...
China’s stocks fall on fears that government won’t intervene as vigorously now that the 19th Party Congress is over
Over night Chinese stocks fell the most since early August. Sovereign bonds led the way lower, extending a monthlong retreat on fears that the government will step up efforts to reduce leverage in the financial system. The Shanghai Composite was down by as much as...
How to allocate cash for my new Perfect 5 ETF portfolio
I’ve posted on my subscription sites JugglingwithKnives.com and JubakAM.com my recommendations for asset allocations for the five ETFs in my new Perfect 5 ETF Active Passive Portfolio. That post begins like this: “In some markets deciding how much money...
Any surprises for investors in the Communist Party Congress that starts tomorrow in China?
On the one hand, the results of the 19th Communist Party Congress that begins tomorrow are completely predictable. Current president Xi Jinping will be elected to a new five-year term and when the dust has cleared from the once-every-five-years turnover of 70% of the...
Netflix misses on earnings but more importantly two trends to watch for NFLX, AMZN, FB and others
Netflix missed Wall Street estimates for third quarter earnings today by 3 cents  share. Revenue at $2.98 billion was in-line with analyst estimates of $2.97 billion (and up 30.3% year over year.)  But the big news for investors were in two trends that Netflix...
Weaker than expected expansion in China’s economy–problem seems to be in private sector
The Caixin Service Sector Purchasing Managers Index fell to 50.6 in September. That’s the lowest level since December 2015 and 2.1 points below the August survey. In this index anything above 50 indicates that the economy or the sector is expanding so...
Why a portfolio of “passive” ETFs requires active management by you–announcing my new ETF portfolio to do just that
Can I clear up one bit of confusion? ETFs are indeed passively managed investment vehicles. Their portfolios passively follow indexes rather than allocating money into the picks of a fund manager. But portfolios of ETFs put together by investors aren’t–and...
$1,000 is that HUGE middle class tax cut?
The 9-page outline of a tax cut plan released by President Donald Trump left a lot of details to be filled in later. For example, what about the President’s promise that middle class American would see a huge tax cut? Well, today Gary Cohn, currently chief...
Tech breakdown starts to look serious
The conventional wisdom at the end of last week was that we were witnessing a rotation out of tech shares and into financials and small cap stocks. In other words, nothing to get  too concerned about. Apple (AAPL) was a special case as surveys of retail channels...
China’s credit rating takes a hit from S&P
Standard & Poor’s lowered its credit rating on China’s sovereign debt by one step to A+ on Thursday. The cut is the first ratings reduction since 1999. S&P cited the risks from the growing debt levels in China’s government and corporate sector as...
It’s a new month but the same old Congress–as a debt-ceiling deal descends into usual chaos
Please extend the greeting of your choice to the U.S. Congress, back in “action” today after a long August recess. This morning Democrats said they would vote for a disaster relief package for victims of Hurricane Harvey if Republicans attached the measure...
Today’s market move looks pretty random to me–but here are a few possible trends to watch
Lots of folks out this morning trying to explain why U.S. stocks are up so strongly today after Thursday’s thrashing and two lackluster trading session on Friday and Monday. One explanation I’m hearing a lot is that President Donald Trump sounded...
Trying to put a date and figure on the peak in U.S. oil production
How soon will U.S. oil production from wells in oil shale geologies peak? It’s the big question for U.S. oil producers and for a global oil market swimming in excess inventory. As long as U.S. oil production continues to increase all of OPEC’s production...
Market goes from worried to freaked out today
U.S. President Donald Trump threatening North Korea with fire and fury was certainly enough to worry global stock markets yesterday. Taunts from North Korea overnight and a promise from that country to drop four missiles into the waters off Guam sometime around the...
Good luck on getting that done: Debt ceiling truce looks to be over (if it ever really existed)
Back on August 2–you know, a week ago–it looked like, maybe, raising the debt ceiling wouldn’t be impossible after all. Sure time was short, very short. There were only 12 working days when both houses of Congress were in session before Treasury...
Why the huge intraday swing in stocks? The reason matters
At the end of the day, the move in the Standard & Poor’s 500 wasn’t all that large–just a drop of 0.24% to 2474.92. (Although these days, that’s a big decline for U.S. stocks. You have to go back to the beginning of July to find a bigger...
Higher production and lower capital spending–that’s the picture from U.S. oil shale producers
The earnings reports from U.S. oil shale producers are painting a very uniform picture so far: Production was up in the second quarter; capital spending budgets will be reduced for the remainder of 2017; and despite those capital spending cuts production is expected...
What happened in the markets (and economy) last week–and what it means for August and September
Let’s try to put together a few events from last week into a coherent (or, if that’s too much to hope, at least a semi-coherent) explanation for where the equity market stands now. What events, you ask? How about Friday’s report on second quarter GDP...
Huge earnings beat can’t save Alphabet from metrics miss
Alphabet (GOOG) dropped 3.1% in after hours trading in spite of reporting earnings of $5.01 a share, well ahead of the $4.49 expected by Wall Street. Revenue of $26.01 billion, up 21% from the second quarter of 2016, also beat the Wall Street consensus of $25.6...
China economic data too good to be true?
Talk about hitting your marks! Second quarter GDP grew in China at a 6.9% year over year rate, Beijing reported over the weekend. The consensus projection called for 6.8% growth. In the first quarter China’s GDP grew at 6.9% year over year. In June Fixed Asset...
Worry about central banks gains weight
Today it’s JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon telling a conference in Paris that the unwinding of central bank bond-buying programs is an unprecedented challenge that may be more disruptive than people think. Tomorrow (and Thursday) it’s Federal Reserve...
VALE continues to make progress to becoming a “true corporation”
The ultimate goal is to convert Vale (VALE), the global iron ore producer, into a true corporation from its current status as a company controlled by a shareholder group consisting of Brazilian pension funds, Brazilian bank Bradesco, and Japan’s Mitsui. This...
Yesterday IMF gave up on Trump reflation trade; today financial markets say, Not yet
Yesterday the International Monetary Fund lowered its forecast for U.S. economic growth to 2.1% for 2017 (from 2.3%) and to 2.1% in 2018 (from 2.5%.) The fund had included a likely infrastructure spending bill and a tax cut/tax reform package in its earlier forecast....
A Fed interest rate increase in June? Consumer spending says, Yes; Inflation slowdown says, Maybe
Consumer spending picked up in April, signaling that growth in the economy as a whole is headed for a rebound after a weak first quarter. Purchases increased by 0.4% in April, matching projections from economists surveyed by Bloomberg, after a 0.3% gain in March, the...
Buy on the dip reflex intact today
Last night I posted that today would be critical for this market’s buy on the dip reflex. Yesterday’s move up after the Wednesday rout wasn’t convincing, I noted, and a retreat today would have raise doubts that the long-standing buy on the dip...
China bullish infrastructure rhetoric overshadows weak economic data
Add China to the list of those markets (oil being another example) where rhetoric is more important for setting market direction than data. Yesterday the Chinese government released generally disappointing economic numbers. Industrial output, for example, rose by 6.5%...
Oil back down this morning as “hedgies” reposition
So much for Monday’s oil rally. This morning, a day after Russia and Saudi Arabia succeeded in talking up oil prices with promises that OPEC and allied non-OPEC producers would extend the current production cuts past their June expiration until the end of 2017,...
Watch out for volatility around Friday’s CPI inflation report
Friday’s Consumer Price Index release will have extraordinary power. Maybe even enough to move the financial markets. Ordinarily, the monthly report of inflation in the Consumer Price Index isn’t a market-shaking event. The CPI isn’t the inflation...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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