Longbow analyst David MacGregor downgraded Harley-Davidson (HOG) to Underperform from Neutral with a price target of $43. The shares closed yesterday up 2% to $52.06. Channel checks in Q4 revealed that Harley’s U.S. retail sales are trending down 5%-7% with U.S. shipments expected to be down at least 20%, MacGregor tells investors in a research note. The analyst expects international shipments to offset weaker shipments in the U.S. but he sees a “strong chance” that Q4 shipments could be at the low-end of the company’s shipment guidance or miss for the quarter. He believes Polaris Industries’ (PII) Indian moto...
Not long after bitcoin soared by over $1,000 in a matter of minutes, when it was revealed that Peter Thiel had invested in the cryptocurrency, overnight bitcoin experienced some weakness after a report in the QQ.com news portal, subsequently confirmed by Reuters, that China’s PBOC had held a meeting to regulate bitcoin mining power use, an increasingly sensitive topic now that global bitcoin energy consumption is greater than what Qatar uses in a year. According to QQ.com, the PBOC called for rectifying irregularities in electricity use of some bitcoin mining fields, and during a closed-door meeting, discussed limiting the power use o...
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 basic materials sector. That sector includes thirteen industries all related to mining or making commodities. Industries include: agricultural inputs, aluminum; building materials, chemicals, coal, copper, gold, industrial metals, lumber & wood, paper, silver, specialty chemicals, and steel. Today we’...
Germany, Europe’s largest economy continued to create more new jobs as growing demands boosted business activities and economic growth. The economy created 29,000 jobs in December, pushing the unemployment rate to a record-low of 5.5 percent, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg reported on Wednesday. The continuous job creation in Europe’s largest economy is expected to eventually push up weak wages and low consumer prices. Surged in domestic spending and strong oversea orders have been supporting German economy as shown by the Purchasing Managers’ Index released on Tuesday. However, business optimism slipped slightly in D...
CoreLogic’s Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the USA are up 7.0 % year-over-year (reported up 1.0 % month-over-month). CoreLogic HPI is used in the Federal Reserves’ Flow of Funds to calculate the values of residential real estate. Analyst Opinion of CoreLogic’s HPI CoreLogic year-over-year rate of growth has been steady for three years – with a higher number issued initially and later significantly downwardly revised in the following months. Last month it was 7.0 % year-over-year also – which was revised down to 6.4 %. This likely will be reduced further in the coming months – and will end ...
Weighting stocks based on market capitalization has long been the design standard for most index funds, but a recently launched ETF turns the strategy on its head. The Reverse Cap Weighted US Large Cap ETF (RVRS) holds the familiar S&P 500 names but in weights that are inversely proportional to their market cap. For example, the largest stock has the smallest weight and the smallest has the biggest footprint. What’s the rationale behind the strategy? Isn’t this just another twist on tapping into the small-cap factor? The Capital Spectator recently asked Herb Blank, a senior consultant at Global Finesse, to explain the motivation ...
We’re onto day two of trading in 2018 and it seems like the US Dollar is still hungover from last year. Ongoing enthusiasm in US equities after the passage of the tax reform bill seems to have been lost on the greenback: rates markets have not changed the expected timing of the next rate hike (still due in March 2018); and the US yield curve (2s10s) remains near its flattest levels of the past year as long-term inflation and growth expectations haven’t improved. The simple reality is that the tax reform bill should be a boon for corporate earnings – which have been strong and continue to trend positive – but not necess...
The US dollar is stabilizing but the tone remains fragile. The euro, which has advanced for five consecutive sessions coming into today is slightly lower. The euro had stalled yesterday as it approached last year’s high set in September near $1.2090. Yesterday was also the third consecutive close above the upper Bollinger Band, which is found today near $1.2060. There is a 950 mln euro option struck at $1.2030 that expires today. There is also a $1.1960 strike (518 mln euros) that will also be cut, but less relevant. Some had linked the euro’s gains yesterday and the sharp backing up of European yields to comments from E...
Well, never a dull moment in the cryptosphere. As usual, there was notable Bitcoin news overnight, although not as it relates to prices. Everyone’s favorite digital currency is still off its post-holiday lows thanks to the remnants of the sugar high that accompanied yesterday’s WSJ article revealing a “monster” stake held by none other than Peter Thiel. According to QQ, the PBoC recently held a closed-door meeting where the discussion centered on regulating power use in Bitcoin mining. You can read the translated article for yourself here, but suffice to say that miners themselves are shrugging it off. “The recent news is all abo...
Wells Fargo analyst Jim Birchenough upgraded Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA) to Outperform and raised his price target for the shares to $53 from $19. The stock closed yesterday up 7% to $36.21. An improved FDA environment could facilitate approval of ralinepag in pulmonary arterial hypertension, Birchenough tells investors in a research note. He’s upgrading the shares ahead of the Phase 2 data for S1P modulator etrasimod in ulcerative colitis. The analyst believes recent data from Celgene’s (CELG) competing S1P modulator ozanimod “lowers the bar for differentiation.” Both of Arena’s assets “could attract l...