Impressive Economic Acceleration Our theme for 2018 is for an even stronger economy accompanied by slowing stock market growth as compared to 2017. Much of the slow recovery since 2009 has been on the backs of the consumer without the normal contribution of Investment Spending and Exports. The new expansion cycle we entered in 2016 appears to have sparked a return of more normal growth in the Investment and Export components of GDP. Other than temporary inventory declines due to a strong economy, we expect 2017 will hit an 11 year high GDP growth rate and 2018 will witness our first annual growth rate above 2.7% since 2005. US and E...
My Swing Trading Approach Right now, the risk-reward on trade setups are unfavorable when taking in the overall state of the market. At this point, I am looking to ride my current positions higher, while raising the stops. Indicators VIX – Extremely low at 9.22, and likely to see a bounce at some point this week. T2108 (% of stocks trading below their 40-day moving average): Still under-performing, but a decent rally on Friday of 2.7% to 67.5% Moving averages (SPX): Currently trading above all the major moving averages. Industries to Watch Today Technology still leading the way. With the exception of Real Estate and Utilitie...
In the video, we talk through what the acronym encompasses: Sweden, Canada, Australia, Norway, and New Zealand. These 5 economies share a few key traits, and chief among them is that they have considerably overvalued property markets. They also all share the trait of relative export sensitive economies – particularly on the commodity side. This commodity sensitivity helps explain the monetary policy settings, and how the new wave of a potential shared property bubble emerged. The SCANNZ economies are particularly vulnerable to the major theme of a global turning of the tides in monetary policy. A coming full circle of the trends and...
Briefly: Intraday trade: Our Monday’s intraday trading outlook was bearish. It proved partly wrong, because the S&P 500 gained just 0.2% following slightly lower opening of the trading session. The broad stock market continued its short-term uptrend, but it remained within a relatively narrow trading range. There have been no confirmed negative signals so far. However, we can see some clear short-term overbought conditions along with an overly bullish investors’ sentiment. Therefore, intraday short position is favored today. Stop-loss is at the level of 2,765 and potential profit target is at 2,710 (S&P 500 index). Our i...
I am happy to introduce a new guest to the show, Gianni Kovacevic. Gianni is an active investor and well regarded in the commodity space as an expert in the energy sector. In this interview Gianni provides some data showing the fundamental shift in the energy sector towards more renewable energy sources while still understanding the other resources that need to be utilized. Audio Length: 00:14:39...
Every New York stock exchange trading day I’m posting a daily dividend stock or fund review. I’ll share the three chief qualities of just one equity or fund that could be selected for a dividend stock portfolio I’ve named the Safari to Sweet Success. This week’s slot in the Safari portfolio is reserved for the Healthcare sector. That sector includes ten industries all related to testing, diagnosing and curing what ails us. The healthcare industries are: biotechnology; diagnostics & research; drug manufacturers – major; drug manufacturers – specialty & generic; healthcare plans; long-term care faci...
I really liked this article by John Kennedy over at Silicon Republic, and decided to reproduce it here as it’s fitting for the kickoff of 2018. Who are the fintech start-ups in Europe worth banking on in the year ahead? Europe is in the grip of a fintech revolution and 2018 is set to be a pivotal year, with seismic developments ranging from Brexit ructions to the onset of GDPR, the implementation of PSD2 and the ongoing evolution of blockchain-based services. In many ways, Europe represents the perfect storm in terms of the challenges and opportunities that fintech portends. Fintechs were once seen as a potential threat to the stability ...
This past weekend, I discussed the surge in market exuberance in terms of both individual and professional investors. Of course, such surges in exuberance is generally indicative of the “capitulation phase” as the last of the “holdouts” finally jump back into a market which “can seemingly never go down.” But therein lies the danger. It worth noting that despite the “hope” of more fiscal support for the markets, longer-term conditions currently persist which have led to rather sharp market reversions in the past. “There are many factors from economic, monetary, geopolitical, and financial which have ignited each ...
WTI crude prices pulled back from a critical technical level after coming within a couple of ticks of the 6258-high hit in May of 2015. Back then oil topped before a collapse in price as three bearish factors caused oil to fall. The first was worries about the future of the European Union. Fears that a Greece exit vote would destroy the EU caused real worries. Prior to the Grexit vote Europe had shown signs of growth. Yet, that vote drove Europe back into a recession based on fear and that was the first factor that led to a sell-off. Greece, of course, voted to leave the EU in July of 2015, only to say that the vote was to stay after the Gree...
The latest issue of the NFIB Small Business Economic Trends came out this morning. The headline number for December came in at 104.9, down 2.6 from the previous month. The index is at the 96th percentile in this series. Today’s number came in below the Investing.com forecast of 108.4. Here is an excerpt from the opening summary of the news release. Small business confidence blasted off the day after the 2016 election and remained in the stratosphere for all of 2017, making last year an all-time record setter for the NFIB Index of Small Business Optimism, released today. “2017 was the most remarkable year in the 45-year history of...