YOU have just become the big winner of the latest reshuffle of White House personnel. No, this is not the result of your own Machiavellian skills in intrigue, backstabbing, and betrayal. You have ME to thanks for this development. Sometimes it seems that there is no corner on earth I haven’t visited, no event I didn’t know about in advance, and no organization where I don’t already have an intimate contact. Today is one of those days. That’s what I felt upon learning that my friend, Anthony Scaramucci, had been appointed White House communications director. I have known Anthony for many years, known to his friends as “the Moo...
IIlinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW), a manufacturer and seller of industrial products and equipment worldwide founded in 1912 and based in Glenview, Illinois posted a favorable Q2 fiscal report this morning as follows: Earnings/Share: UP 16% to $1.69 compared to the same period a year ago which included an EPS benefit of $0.03 per share related to a legal settlement. Excluding this item, second quarter earnings were $1.66 per share, an increase of 14% versus the prior year. Revenue: UP 4.9% to $3.6 billion. Organic revenue increased 2.6% while the 2016 acquisition of Engineered Fasteners & Components (EF&C) added 3.5% to revenue. Net...
Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) has received a good deal of positive press for its performance off the 2016 lows. No doubt it has done well, as it is up around 50% off the lows of last year, while the S&P is up nearly 30%. This 18-month rally has caused many to tout how well Emerging markets are doing. For sure it has been a better place to be if one was spot on and bought the lows last year. If one looks back a little further back into the returns since 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2011, buy & hold investors of this ETF don’t have much to brag about! Below compares the performance of EEM to the S&P 500 since 2011- EEM peaked in 2011 at (1)...
It’s been clear for years that excessive and prolonged central bank accommodation has paradoxically served to create a disinflationary impulse in some sectors of the economy. Nowhere is this more readily apparent than in the US energy complex. Otherwise, insolvent production was allowed to effectively hibernate – as opposed to going out of business – during the downturn in oil prices thanks to wide open capital markets. With investors starving for any semblance of yield, markets remained open to companies that would, under normal circumstances, have lost access. Poor balance sheet discipline was rewarded rather than punished and far fr...
Market Outlook With nearly a fifth of quarterly earnings results out, investors are divided on how early corporate reports are serving as an indicator of the overall health of the U.S. economy, and that could contribute to a volatile week as stocks linger near record highs. Earnings so far are confirming less-than-stellar economic data recently, said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management. In the Almanac Trader, Jeff Hirsch talked about how the market is starting to line up with the typical July seasonal trading pattern. Based upon July’s recent 21-year performance chart DJIA, S&P 500, Nasdaq Russell 1000 and Russe...
On the same day that Greek PM Alexis Tsipras triumphantly announced to The Guardian that “The worst is clearly behind us”, Greece just as triumphantly announced that its long-rumored bond issue, the first after a three-year hiatus which saw its last bond issue crash then surge, is now a reality. Just like in 2014, Greece is looking to sell another batch of five-year bonds, according to an Athens Stock Exchange filing. The bonds will be sold in benchmark size via a legion of banks, and are expected to price on Tuesday. In terms of total size, it will ultimately depend on client demand – recall that the 2014 issue was 8x over...
Dollar/CAD took another step on the way down, dipping under 1.25. The next level of support is 1.2460. The low so far is 1.2494. After the initial dip, we have a minor bounce back, which looks like a “dead cat bounce”. Better than expected Canadian wholesale sales drive the loonie forward. They rose by 0.9%, better than 0.5% expected. While it came on top of a small downwards revision, the data looks upbeat. It joins the hawkish hike by the BOC and the generally positive figures coming out of Canada. Jobs, retail sales, GDP growth, and basically everything is going in favor of the C$. The other side of the currency pair is the ongoing w...
Expectations going into the OPEC monitoring meeting in St. Petersburg were low. The OPEC agreement to reduce output appeared to be fraying. June output appeared to have increased in several countries, and private sector estimates suggest output rose further in July. Russia expressed reluctance to extend the agreement further. Ecuador announced it would no longer participate in the output restraint. Hopes that Nigeria and Libya, who were exempt from the quota, would cap output were played down in recent days. Initial reports suggest the outcome was better than expected. Saudi Arabia agreed to cut its output further and would limit it...
The financials industry is full of high-quality, blue chip stocks. Before showing you an example, it’s important to understand what a blue chip stock really is. There is no ‘formal’ definition of a blue chip stock that is widely accepted among financial professionals. The term is used to describe high-quality, economically durable companies that are likely to continue profitable operations for a long, long time. At Sure Dividend, we define a blue chip stock as a company with a 100+ year operating history and a 3%+ dividend yield. These two characteristics mean that: The company has a business model that has endured through many marke...
This morning’s release of the June Existing-Home Sales decreased from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.52 million units. The Investing.com consensus was for 5.58 million. The latest number represents a 1.8% decrease from the previous month and a 0.7% increase year-over-year. Here is an excerpt from today’s report from the National Association of Realtors. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says the previous three-month lull in contract activity translated to a pullback in existing sales in June. “Closings were down in most of the country last month because interested buyers are being tripped up ...