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  • Finance 0

    3 Mutual Funds To Buy On Phenomenal Housing Data

    Per the latest joint report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, housing starts and building permits for March came in at 1.32 million and 1.35 million units, respectively. While housing starts increased 1.9% in March, building permits advanced about 2.5% in the same period. The metrics followed 7% and 5.7% respective declines in February. Such a surge has primarily been attributed to a rebound in multifamily house constructions. Under such favorable circumstances, investing in real estate mutual funds would make for a prudent investment decision. Rebound in Multifamily House Construction Boost...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    ACM Research Shares Could Fall When IPO Lockup Expires

    The 180-day lockup period for ACM Research, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACMR) ends on May 2, 2018. When this six-month period ends, the company’s pre-IPO shareholders will have the opportunity to sell large blocks of previously restricted shares. We believe that they are likely eager to do so – ACMR has a return from IPO of more than 110%. More than 12 million shares of ACMR are subject to lockup agreements. Just 3 million shares of ACMR are currently freely tradeable. (Source: S-1/A) The potential for a sudden increase in the volume of shares traded on the secondary market could negatively impact the stock price of ACMR in the short-term when ...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    What’s Bitcoin Really Worth?

    What’s Bitcoin really worth? This question might really drive you mad if you think hard enough about it. $0? $10? Maybe $1,000,000 for one coin? The range of the numbers can make your head spin but it is the explanation behind the number that matters. For the most part, investors don’t have a good reason why Bitcoin is worth this or that, apart from claims that “it will take over the world” and so on. This hasn’t stopped people from trying, though. Is it even important for short-term traders? Can it boost profits on our hypothetical positions? In an article on the Bloomberg Businessweek website, we have stumbled upon a number analys...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    Groups Breadth Leaning Weak

    Two days ago, the percentage of S&P 500 Industry Groups trading above their 50-DMA reached 66.6%, which was a huge improvement from the 0% reading we saw back in late March. Over the last two days, we’ve seen this percentage dip back below 50% just as the S&P 500 did the same today. At the surface, breadth in individual groups appears to be tracking the S&P 500 pretty closely. Looking a little more closely, though, breadth isn’t as solid as it may seem. The table below shows each of the 24 S&P 500 Industry Groups and how they’ve performed YTD as well as where they are trading relative to their 50-DMAs.Note in this ...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    8 Things To Know About Last Week’s CBO Report

    For what they’re worth and for anyone who doesn’t mind digging through the weeds, here are my comments on last week’s budget outlook from the Congressional Budget Office, which I previewed here. In the baseline scenario that’s widely reported in the media (I’ll abbreviate it BS for this post), the CBO shows federal debt held by the public soaring from 76% of GDP at fiscal year-end in 2017 to 96% of GDP at the end of the ten-year forecast horizon in 2028. The CBO also restored its alternative scenario (AS), which adjusts for certain constraints on what it’s legally allowed to include in the BS, making it more realistic than ...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    Transitory’s Japanese Cousin

    Thomas Hoenig was President of the Federal Reserve’s Kansas City branch for two decades. He left that post in 2011 to become Vice Chairman of the FDIC. Before that, Mr. Hoenig as a voting member of the FOMC in 2010 cast the lone dissenting vote in each of the eight policy meetings that year (meaning he was against QE2, too). This makes him, apparently, the hawk of all hawks. In January 2011, in his capacity as still President in the Kansas City branch, Hoenig told an audience in Kansas City that though he was no longer a voting member of the Committee (he had starting in 2011 rotated off as regional branch presidents do) his same concerns...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    Digesting Friday’s Draghi, ECB Headlines

    Here’s some shit you probably won’t read. But I wasted time on it anyway, because why not? That was the tagline I slapped on a post I did last week called “Thoughts On The ECB Minutes And A Bearish Euro Call For EURUSD Bulls.” You can read that post for yourself (because as noted in the tagline, you probably didn’t read it when I originally published it – who in the U.S. reads the ECB minutes let alone someone else’s read on the minutes, right?), but the point was to talk about the account of the ECB’s March meeting in the context of the recent spate of poor incoming data in Europe and also in the context of the “policymaker...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    Most Active Equity Options And Strikes For Midday – Friday, April 20

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    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    Gold Nearing Bull Breakout

    Gold remains largely forgotten, off the radars of most investors. But that’s likely to change soon as this leading alternative investment is nearing a major bull breakout. Once gold climbs to decisive new bull-market highs, sentiment will turn and investors’ interest will surge. Their resulting buying will rapidly drive gold higher, attracting in more capital inflows. Gold is only a couple modest up days away from that key breakout. Universally in all markets, traders’ psychology is completely dependent on price action and levels. When prices are high and rising, speculators and investors alike eagerly buy in. They love chasing winners,...
    On April 20, 2018 / By
  • Finance 0

    Manufacturing Productivity Declines In 54 Of 86 Industries For 2017

    A BLS report shows widespread declines in manufacturing and mining productivity. A BLS report on Productivity and Costs by Industry shows widespread productivity declines in 2017 for manufacturing and mining industries. Productivity Synopsis Labor productivity declines were widespread among manufacturing industries in 2017, with decreases in 54 of the 86 four-digit NAICS industries. Of the 51 industries in durable manufacturing, 34 experienced productivity decreases in 2017 led by a decline in the other transportation equipment industry of 11.5 percent. Nondurable manufacturing also experienced widespread declines in 2017 with productivity ...
    On April 20, 2018 / By