In 2017, the BLS estimates that just 861k Americans were added to the official labor force, the denominator, of course, for the unemployment rate. That’s out of an increase of 1.4 million in the Civilian Non-Institutional Population, the overall prospective pool of workers. Both of those rises were about half the rate experienced in 2016. While population growth slowed last year, it produced, apparently, an almost constant participation rate. That suggests either statistical “fitting” or the same labor market conditions nowhere near strong enough to entice the millions (as many as 16.4 million) sitting outside the official definitions. ...
I’ve really been impressed by the start that we have seen here in 2018. Really an amazing start, and the best opening week that I can remember having to a new year, in a very, very long time. In fact it is the best opening week for the stock market since 2006. Following December where the volume was simply putrid and the market was uninterested, this has been a much welcomed rally. But the big question is, can it last? Of late, the big sectors that are rallying are Basic Materials and Energy. Financials tried, but have stumbled since yesterday’s attempt to get off the starting blocks. Technology is finally running ag...
Wow. Could this be true? The DJW is up 10% since the break out in September-2017. Should we start taking profits, or should we instead throw more money into stocks? I have no idea. I haven’t read the news today, but I did see the headline that job growth came in a bit weak. I assume the market interpreted that to mean rates may not need to move higher as fast as expected… and that favors technology stocks. Outlook Summary: The long-term outlook is positive. The medium-term trend is up. The short-term trend is up. ...
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Skyline Medical Inc. (Nasdaq:SKLN) (“Skyline” or “the Company”), producer of the FDA-approved STREAMWAY® System for automated, direct-to-drain medical fluid disposal, today announced the pricing of a firm commitment underwritten public offering of 2,900,000 Units at an offering price of $0.95 per Unit, with each Unit consisting of one share of the Company’s Common Stock and 0.3 of a Series E Warrant, with each whole Series E Warrant purchasing one share of our common stock at an exercise price of $1.00 per whole share. To the extent that the purchase of Units would cause the ben...
It has been a pretty impressive start to the New Year as we close firmer on all core markets and across all core regions. Asia followed US sentiment and added another 1% for the Nikkei, 0.75% for Australia and +0.25% for both Shanghai and Hang Seng. The KOPSI added 1.3% after news that North and South Korea have planned talks for next Tuesday. Exporters helped the Nikkei’s advance as Yen breached the 113 and heads towards the weekly number of 114. China’s performance continued following strong PMI data and a general sense money is starting to work. The result was a close at a 10 year high for the HSI. The records continued to roll in Euro...
On Wednesday, the Fed released the minutes of the FOMC’s December meeting.As usual, the minutes followed the standard format, mirroring the way presentations and discussions proceed at FOMC meetings.It began with a brief summary report by the manager of the Open Market Desk in New York.There were only two notable pieces of information in that summary.The first was that market participants attributed the narrowing of spreads between short- and long-term securities to the anticipated continuing rise in the FOMC’s target federal funds rate and the belief that the Treasury would increasingly concentrate its issuance of new securities to the s...
In 2017, the S&P 500 had a “perfect year,” in which it rose nearly 20%. It was the first year since 1990 that the S&P 500 rose 12 months in a row. However, three unloved and overlooked metals beat that performance soundly. Lead, zinc and copper all had outstanding years in 2017. They returned 26%, 30% and 30%, respectively. However, most investors had zero exposure to the sector last year. The base metals space spent the five years from 2011 to 2015 in a brutal bear market… …until 2016, when the sector began to show signs of life. Shrinking Supply You can see what I mean from the chart below: As you can see, these meta...
The natural gas market sold off again today as it continued to price in warmer weather expectations for the second half of January. This is something we first warned of in our Note of the Day last Friday, where we picked up on long-range warm trends that could potentially pull the market back. Prices did end up reversing this week, but before we saw the prompt month contract reverse we actually saw the April/October J/V spread start the reversal before hitting resistance, indicating that the natural gas market still appeared structurally loose in the face of elevated production. That spread kept selling off today as well, fitting well with ...
Here we are in the first week of 2018! As I mentioned in my last Economy & Markets article, I usually focus on short-term overreactions in the Treasury bond market and not long-term forecasting. But since Harry and the rest of the Dent Research team have their opinions on where the markets are set to go this year, I’ll take my own stab at it. Throughout 2017, long-term Treasury rates fluctuated between a high of 3.19% in mid-March to a low of just under 2.68% in September. Those fluctuations were significant enough to produce some nice trades in my Treasury Profits Accelerator service, but volatility was notably absent. Like in s...