The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index – which forecasts employment for the next 6 months improved with the author’s saying “While Friday’s job numbers were slightly disappointing, the ETI does not provide any indication of slowing employment growth“. Analyst Opinion of Conference Board’s Employment Index Econintersect evaluates year-over-year change of this index (which is different than the headline view) – as we do with our own employment index. The year-over-year index growth rate improved from last month. However, our index’s growth deteriorated modestly. Still, Econintersec...
The Global E-Learning market is expected to grow 7.2% annually over the next decade to $325 billion by 2025. The growth in the market is expected to be driven by emerging trends of gamification of learning, implementation of IT security, cloud-based solutions, and growth in online content & digitization. China’s VIPKid is a leading Billion Dollar Unicorn player in the space. VIPKid’s Offerings Beijing-based VIPKid was founded by Cindy Mi and Jessie Chen in 2013. Prior to setting up VIPKid, Mi was working at building a brick-and-mortar tutoring business with her uncle. Mi was inspired to set up VIPKid because of a troubling experienc...
First of all, apologies. The title of this column is misleading. Because of publishing turnaround times, I’m really dealing with last week’s market in gold, not this week’s. No matter. Last week, this week: gold is gold. Gold excites passions. Some folk are enamored of the metal. Others regard it as a “barbarous relic.” Then there’s a more fair-minded contingent of investors who just regard gold’s utility as a diversifying portfolio allocation. So, fair warning: this column aims to speak to those disinterested investors looking to derive the maximum benefit from gold’s current rally. Spot bullion prices spiked 2.5 percent last...
Tax Cut Party It’s party time! Never mind that taxes cuts will be greatly diluted, and probably won’t happen well into 2018. The mere whiff of the prospect that Uncle Sam’s take is about to be shaved by pennies was enough to break a downtrend in share prices that was starting to get worrisome. We got the short cover. The big question now is “Can we maintain developing momentum into decisive new highs?” Is a mere 3% enough of a correction to clear out all of the stale long positions? Or will we revisit the lows, once Washington goes quiet? We’ll find out next week after all the month-end aberrations finish. One thing is certain. Th...
Stocks behave in different ways in different time frames. Studies show stocks trend sometimes and exhibit “mean-reverting behavior” at other times. In the very long run, mean-reverting strategies work well. If you’re a true long-term investor, a chart like the one below could tell where to look for investments. These are the worst performers for the past five years. After they stop falling, they’re likely to be the biggest winners in the next five years. This kind of chart is the starting point for a mean-reversion strategy. That’s the theory behind value investing. When a stock falls, if the business is good, the price-to-earnings ...
This weekend, the crazy dictator in North Korea stepped up the insanity by supposedly testing out a hydrogen bomb. Whether they actually did this is debatable but the rhetoric is going beyond words with missiles and bomb tests. What Kim Jon Un is trying to accomplish is anyone’s guess because he isn’t winning any friends with ballistic missiles over Japan or nuclear tests. We just hope that a strategic miscalculation doesn’t lead to a serious war. As money managers, we have to decipher whether this is good or bad for the stock market. In April, Barron’s Mark Hulbert wrote a piece titled “War is Hell – but N...
Five-star Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White has just issued an incredibly bullish analysis of disappearing photo app Snap Inc (NASDAQ:SNAP). White is ranked an impressive #181 out of 4,642 analysts tracked by TipRanks. White reiterated his buy rating on September 5 with a $30 price target. This translates into huge upside potential of 110% from the current share price of just $14.27. Shares in SNAP have tanked following its IPO in March. Prices reached $27 before investors became anxious about the stock’s long-term money-making potential. And the release of Facebook’s rival Instagram Stories did nothing to improve the mood. But a...
Anxiety seems to be the word of the day in bond markets. While reports of North Korea moving its ICBMs managed to send 10Y Treasury yields 1bps lower, a Trump Tweet on building strategic forces in Japan and South Korea has sparked a solid bid in bonds, pushing 10Y back a 2.10% handle… Traders – or algos – are increasingly knee-jerking on these headlines… Next test looks like Payrolls spike lows. at 2.10%, as it’s clear just how jittery markets have become....
On September 5th, the members of both houses of Congress of the United States will clean the beach sand from between their toes and return to work. Our public servants who occupy The House of Representatives have been working on their respective tans since July 29th. The Senate has had a little less time in the sun; they held their final vote on August 3rd despite their pledge to stay until August 11th. Hopefully, they got a lot of rest, because they have a lot to do upon their return. By the end of September Congress will need to pass a budget bill to avoid a government shutdown. Expect Tea Party Republicans to hold their ground on spending ...
TM editors’ note: This article discusses a penny stock and/or microcap. Such stocks are easily manipulated; do your own careful due diligence. The cannabis industry is the most rapidly developing and evolving industry’s in the world and staying on top of this market is not as easy as it sounds. As the summer season comes to a close, many investors are looking for new opportunities and we want to highlight three developments to watch. While we find these developments to be significant, we believe that investors need to take a deep look at the potential opportunities before diving in. Cronos: A Story to Watch as Shares Trend Higher The ...