Air Products & Chemicals (APD), is one of the few (51 S&P 500 companies) to make it into the dividend aristocrat club, meaning that it’s been raising its dividend for at least 25 consecutive years. In fact, since 1983 Air Products has been growing its dividend at an annual rate of 9.6%, which has not only resulted in exponentially growing income for shareholders, but also decades of market-beating total returns (10.5% annual total return vs 8.7% for the S&P 500 over the last 22 years). However, the key to such consistent success is being able to evolve with changing market and industrial conditions, which in recent years have...
TODAY: EMERGING MARKETS EDITION! I just enjoyed reading Ruchir Sharma’s The Rise and Fall of Nations, and have thus been thinking more about emerging markets. This will be the theme of today’s zig-zagging (some might say disjointed) piece. No overarching thesis or agenda, as per usual; just getting the lay of the land and pointing out a couple of things I find interesting. Since the term was coined, ’emerging markets’ has been a problematic phrase: it refers to so many varied countries that I almost question the premise of this piece. Alas, I will not be doing much to remedy this problem. In the near future, I will ...
The Leader List The leaders are listed below in blue and green. The S&P 500 is the benchmark. Foreign ETFs continue to outperform nicely. Emerging Markets are doing well. Even Russian stocks are starting to show a bit of strength. This Biotech ETF is looking interesting. Bad day for Staples. The Transports continue to break down. Outlook The long-term outlook is positive.The medium-term trend is down as of Aug-10. Looking for a low late September.The short-term trend is down as of July-28. Watching for signs of a new short-term uptrend....
(Audio length 00:11:09) With the precious metals remaining range bound Craig Hemke, Editor of TFMetalsReport.com takes a look at the continued copper and base metals breakout. We try to make sense of this move and what the markets are telling us. We also look ahead to tomorrow’s Jackson Hole meeting and speeches....
We have seen yet another weaker day with the Nikkei declining once more. It had the opportunity to perform but was dragged lower by Industrials, Metals and Manufacturing. The yens strength throughout the week has seen no retracement and remains close the 109 big figure. Core China and Hang Seng both off-set each other with a decline in Shanghai matching a similar paced appreciation for the HSI. Property and Financials were the lead sector today but did have to make-up for being closed yesterday. The ASX traded positively for the day but will be tested tomorrow especially as energy, commodities and gold lose ground in US trading hours. SENSEX ...
The current bullish trend for copper shows no sign of slowing just yet with the red metal touching a 3 year high largely driven by increasing demand from China, along with a fall in inventories in the London warehouses. On the London Metal Exchange, it touched a high of $6649 tonnes during the week, a level not seen since late 2014. The continued trend higher has also been the result of supply issues globally, and as always when such trends develop, both traders and speculators become increasingly nervous and vexed, as the trend gathers momentum and in sharp contrast to their opinion of what ‘should’ be happening. What ‘should’ be hap...
A number of people have forwarded this Bloomberg article – Wall Street Banks Warn Downturn Is Coming – to me over the last couple of days. That fact alone is probably a good argument to ignore it but I can’t help but read articles like this if for no other reason than to know what the crowd is thinking. The gist of the article is that a bunch of sell side analysts think we are nearing the end of the current business cycle and that has them worried about stocks and credit. If that is true – that we are nearing the end of the cycle – then it is certainly reason for concern. The biggest stock market losses are generally associate...
Terrible housing data for the second day in a row, debt ceiling fears surging in bill markets, chaos in the energy complex as Hurricane Harvey nears landfall, more McConnell-Trump turmoil… and while stocks were lower, only Trannies really dropped… The market said… Video length: 00:00:04 Debt Ceiling Default Doubts continue to surge… Trannies were worst again but Small Caps managed gains… Futures show what an odd day it was – algos lifted equity futures bit by bit overnight into the cash open and then stocks were dumped… and then when Europe closed, buying resumed… Trannies also remain the on...
Shares of cable operator Charter Communications (CHTR) have been on a roll lately, rising more than 50% during the last 12 months. You would think after such a big run that the company must have had a dramatic change of fortune, but really it is just a traditional cable company offering customers bundles of services while consolidating smaller regional competitors. The story might sound a lot like Comcast (CMCSA) because they are pretty much in the same business. Comcast owns NBC Universal, so they have a content wing as well, but the two companies are the nation’s leading cable businesses in the United States, with nearly half of all U...
Of the four regional manufacturing surveys released for August, all were in expansion. Analyst Opinion of Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Kansas City Fed manufacturing has been one of the more stable districts and their index improved. Key internals were in expansion. Note that last month the hard data showed contraction whilst all of the Fed district surveys showed expansion. There were no market expectations from Bloomberg / Econoday. The reported value was 16. Any value below zero is contraction. z kansas_man.PNG The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released the August Manufacturing Survey today. According to Chad Wilkerson, vice presiden...