Since I reviewed Ford’s (NYSE: F) dividend safety a year ago, the stock has received an upgrade. Last year, the rating was not particularly high due to declining cash flow and the fact that it eliminated its dividend in 2006. The recent upgrade occurred because the elimination of the dividend aged out of the system. One of the factors that SafetyNet Pro considers is the dividend history over the past 10 years. Last year, the 2006 dividend cut still counted toward the grade. But just like an adult whose teenage delinquencies are expunged after years of good behavior, the cut is no longer on Ford’s SafetyNet Pro record. The Financials...
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are the decision makers at the Federal Reserve who meet every six weeks to decide how to set short term interest rates in the United States. They held their most recent meeting on Wednesday, 26 July 2017 where, frankly, they didn’t decide on very much…. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and said it expected to start winding down its massive holdings of bonds “relatively soon” in a sign of confidence in the U.S. economy. Key Points: * FOMC says: “Committee expects to begin implementing its balance sheet normalization program relatively soon...
FOMC July Meeting – Three things we have learned The two-day FOMC meeting concluded yesterday with the release of the monetary policy statement. With no press conference scheduled, the markets were widely expected to see no changes. As expected the US Federal Reserve kept the policy rate unchanged. The Fed also maintained that it would keep monetary policy accommodative. The FOMC statement showed that the central bank would begin its balance sheet normalization “relatively soon.” The US dollar was seen weakening after the FOMC statement sending its peers to fresh multi-year highs. The common currency, euro rose to a new three-year high ...
Gold markets have been very choppy and volatile as of late, and of course the Wednesday session was always going to be interesting as the FOMC released an interest rate announcement and of course statement. Now that we have had that, and it has been a bit dovish, the gold markets turned around and rallied to reach towards the $1260 level. Currently, I look at this is a market that is consolidating between $1200 on the bottom, and the $1300 level on the top. Because we have bounced from the “middle point” of the overall consolidation, I think that buying will continue. The US dollar has been on its back foot all day, especially considering...
EUR/USD 4 hour As expected the Federal Reserve (Fed) left the interest rates unchanged for the US, which caused the US Dollar to weaken against multiple currencies, including the Euro. Prior to the FOMC statement in the US, the EUR/USD retraced back to the 23.6% Fibonacci level of wave 4 vs 3 but price bounced strongly soon after. The EUR/USD has now reached the 1.1750 resistance level and a break above it could see price challenge the Fibonacci targets of wave 5 vs 1+3. 1 hour The EUR/USD completed a wave 4 (orange) retracement and is now building strong bullish momentum. This is probably part of a wave 3 (grey) within wave 5 (orange). Once ...
The “new normal” of economic growth has been around 2-2.5%. In 2016, overall GDP growth stood at 1.6%. Economic activity decelerated in the first quarter of 2015 to 1.4% annualized. The euro-zone has surpassed the US in growth. Everybody is expecting a pickup in the second quarter, to around 2.5% annualized, but there are reasons to curb the expectations. Retail sales have disappointed and consumption is critical to the US economy. The US dollar is in need for some cheering after the recent drops. This GDP report is important Economic growth now means more job gains later, and more jobs growth later imply higher inflation. For the Fed...
Copper prices surged to the highest levels since May 2015 in the last few days, prompting the ubiquitous “must mean the economy is doing well” narrative from every hope-fuelled reflationist. There’s just one problem, we’ve seen all this before too many times. The most recent spike in copper prices has been explained by the news that China may ban imports of some scrap metal, including copper, from the end of 2018, according to an industry association notice, which may lead to higher refined copper imports into the world’s largest consumer of the metal. As Reuters reports, the review of copper scrap imports i...
Gold prices rose sharply in afternoon U.S. trading, erasing all of the previous day’s losses, after the Federal Reserve left short-term interest rates unchanged and indicated it would likely change its policy on its big balance sheet of U.S. securities relatively soon. However, market players are still looking for the U.S. central bank to hike rates one more time this year. XAU/USD is currently trading at $1253.62, higher than the opening price of $1250.10. Prices are back above the Ichimoku clouds on the H1 and M30 charts, realigning with the 4-hourly and the weekly charts. This suggests that we are going to continue to the upside and ulti...
One of the most pernicious consequences of financialization is the shifting of risk from the top of the wealth-power pyramid to the bottom: those who benefit the most from financialization’s leveraged, speculative credit bubbles protect themselves from losses while those at the bottom of the pyramid (the bottom 99.5%) face the full fury of financialization’s formidable risk. Longtime correspondent Chad D. and I recently exchanged emails exploring how the higher debt loads and higher interest payments of financialization inhibits people at the bottom of the wealth-power pyramid (i.e. debt-serfs) from taking risks such as starting ...