Coca-Cola says it starts to feel the coronavirus slowdown in April
Coca-Cola (KO) beat on earnings and revenue in the first quarter. But, the company said today, April 21, monthly volumes have slumped in April by about 25% globally. The most likely cause of the pattern: Consumers stocked up on Coke products as the coronavirus...
Yesterday’s carnage in the May oil futures spreads today to the June futures
After plunging below $0 on Monday as the May futures contracts neared expiration, West Texas Intermediate continued its descent with the price of oil on the June futures falling to $10 a barrel. The problem, clearly, isn’t in just a technical glitch in the...
Jim’s Extra! 5 MORE smart, short-term moves while we wait for longer-term trends to resolve
Jim’s Extras are something new that I’ve added to JubakPicks.com. Jim’s Extras are posts that provide a wider economic or market analysts than the normal diet here of stock specific posts or posts that cover the day’s market moves. Like...
China GDP plunges by 6.8% in first quarter
China’s gross domestic product contracted by 6.8% from a year ago in the first quarter. Economists had projected a 6.0% drop. The decline was the worst since the government began releasing quarterly GDP numbers in 1992. Other numbers in today’s data dump...
Job losses top 22 million as week sees another 5.2 million initial claims for unemployment
5.245 million more people filed initial claims for unemployment in the week ended April 11, the Labor Department reported this morning. That was down from the prior week’s 6.615 million (revised upwards from an initial report of 6.606 million.) But it still...
TSM beats for quarter, cuts guidance for year, sticks to capital spending plan
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) beat analyst estimates for the first quarter, the company announced today. Net profit almost doubled to $3.9 billion on $10.31 billion in revenue. That amounts to a 91% increase from the March quarter of 2019. Analysts had...
U.S. benchmark oil falls below $20 a barrel on largest increase ever in U.S. inventories
U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell below $20 a barrel, the lowest price since 2002, after the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a huge jump of almost 20 million barrels in U.S. crude inventories. At 1:00 P.m. New York time West Texas...
What do you do when the market is insane and you’re not?
In the short run rationality is not an especially adaptive trait for an investor. Remember that. Take today’s market for example. JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) delivered very sobering news on how the coronavirus and the coronavirus shutdown of big...
Oil deal gets a shrug from the oil markets
This take from Goldman Sachs pretty much sums up the oil market’s reaction to Sunday’s agreement among OPEC+, the United States, Canada, Brazil, and various and sundry G20 oil producers to cut what could be generously calculated as 14.7 million barrels a...
Odds on re-opening economy “soon” climb; uncertainty remains on when
Add Attorney General William Barr to voices in the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump, pushing to “re-open” the U.S. economy sooner rather than later. The Attorney General, in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, said some...
Federal Reserve unveils another $2 trillion loan program for businesses, states, and cities
Saying that the U.S. economy is deteriorating “with alarming speed,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell unveiled a new Fed program to supply more than $2 trillion in new loans to small, medium and large companies as well as cash-strapped states and...
Economy shed another 6.6 million jobs last week
Just too much potentially market-moving news this morning. I count three stories in that category and it’s only noon. But let’s begin. 6.61 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment in the week ended April 4, the Labor Department reported...
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...
Stocks rally on Trump, Fauci optimism on coronavirus
Last night President Donald Trump told Sean Hannity on his Fox News show that his administration is planning to “reopen” the U.S. economy. “We’re looking at the concept where we open sections of the country and we’re also looking at the concept where you...
Watch out for a wild Thursday (and maybe even Wednesday)
The U.S. stock markets are closed on Friday, April 10, for Good Friday. That sets up a short week and a long weekend–which would be likely to produce higher than normal volume and volatility on Thursday anyway as traders and investors bought and sold to position...
Market rallies big this morning on lower new infection rates in Italy, Spain
A rally in European stocks that took the STOXX 600 index up 3% in morning trading has extended to New York. At noon New York Time today, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 5.65% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was ahead 5.66%. The NASDAQ Composite had...
Initial claims for unemployment soar to 6.65 million
I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around exactly how bad the economy is and how fast the collapse has been. Today’s report of 6.65 million new claims for unemployment for the week ended March 28 exploded through the record number of new claims set just...
Selling Middleby out of my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio today
I love this stock. It’s been in the long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio since May 3, 2013. And someday I think the company’s strategy of buying smaller commercial and domestic kitchen equipment companies and then super-charging their sales by giving them access...
Selling GM out of the Jubak Picks Portfolio today
Automakers are scheduled to report first quarter sales numbers tomorrow with Ford Motor (F), Fiat Chrysler, and General Motors (GM) all expected to snow big declines. And the next quarter looks even worse. “There are basically no U.S. auto sales right now,” Adam...
Saudis ramp up oil production
The first tankers in what looks like a long fleet of tankers are loading now in Saudi Arabia on their way to Europe and the United States in April. The Saudi government looks to be making good on its announced increase in output to a record 12.3 million barrels a day...
Will Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico cut its dividend at April 28 meeting? Selling out of the Dividend Portfolio
Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico (PAC) has postponed its annual meeting until April 28. The company’s stock buyback plan and dividend payouts on the agenda. It’s hard to imagine that the company hasn’t at least considered cutting its buyback and...
Positive coronavirus news from Abbot and J&J
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) said today that it will begin human testing of its experimental vaccine for the coronavirus by September and that clinical data on its effects is expected before the end of the year. If the vaccine works well, the company said it could be...
Selling ServiceMaster out of my 50 Stocks Portfolio
I wish I hadn’t bought ServiceMaster Global Holdings (SERV) in my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio back on December 17. But I did. It was a bargain then. It’s not now. And now I think it’s time to cut my losses after some relatively minor gains on March...
Selling First Quantum Minerals today in bear market rally
I still like my long-term thesis for copper miner First Quantum Minerals (FQVLF)–that copper prices will rise with a pick up in global economic growth and that when growth resumes the world will be looking at a shortage of copper. First Quantum has a lot of new...
Buy on the rumor, sell on the news in this bear market
As I write this at 1:20 p.m. New York time on Wednesday, March 25, the Senate is debating the $2 billion (or is it even more now?) coronavirus rescue bill. The consensus is that the chamber will vote and pass the bill sometime this afternoon and then send it to the...
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,...
Cover those shorts! S&P 500 up 9.38% but most heavily shorted stocks rocket ahead of the general market
Stocks are up Big Time today on speculation that the Senate will finally pass a $1.8 trillion (remember when it was just $1.2 trillion?) coronavirus rescue package. As of the close today, March 24, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 9.38% to 2437.33, and the...
Danaher unit gets FDA approval for fast coronavirus test
Late Friday night, the U.S. Food And Drug Administration gave emergency approval to Cepheid’s Xpert Xpress test for coronavirus. The test is the first that can be conducted entirely at point of care for a patient–at a hospital, for instance–without...
Workers are losing jobs at a faster than expected pace–and the layoffs are still accelerating
This morning the Department of Labor announced that new claims for unemployment for the week ending March 14 climbed to 281,000. That was up from 211,000 in the prior week. And much worse than the 220,000 projected by ecomomists. The worst news is that this spike in...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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