Right, so German equities just had their worst day of the year. As noted earlier, a rout in automakers tied to reports of possible collusion didn’t help matters. Here’s Bloomberg’s quick summary: Another week, another scare from the German car industry. What began with Daimler AG’s massive recall of more than 3 million diesel cars to lower their emissions, ended on Friday with Audi also embarking on a voluntary recall of 850,000 vehicles. Adding to the spate of bad news was a report in Der Spiegel magazine that the biggest car manufacturers — Daimler, BMW AG and Volkswagen AG as well as VW’s Audi and Porsche brands — may...
Schlumberger Limited (NYSE: SLB), with principal offices in Paris, Houston, London and The Hague, is the world’s leading provider of technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production, and processing to the oil and gas industry. It operates in 85 countries and employs approximately 100,000. Schlumberger reported results for the second quarter of 2017 as follows: Total corporate revenue: UP 8% from the previous quarter to $7,462 billion and UP 4% from the same period a year ago. North America revenue: UP by 18% from the previous quarter to $2,202 billion and UP 27% from the same period a year ago. International...
ECRI’s WLI Growth Index which forecasts economic growth six months forward remains in positive territory for over one year – after spending the previous 35 consecutive weeks in negative territory. This is compared to RecessionAlerts similar weekly leading index. Also, ECRI released their coincident and lagging indices. Analyst Opinion of the trends of the weekly leading indices Both ECRI’s and RecessionAlerts indices are indicating moderate growth six months from today. Both indices are showing growth but the general trends are in opposite directions. They both are indicating conditions 6 months from today should be somewhat...
Shares of drivetrain maker American Axle (AXL) are plunging after reports of potentially significant production cuts at General Motors (GM). GM PRODUCTION CUTS: According to an earlier report from Reuters, the auto giant is weighing “whether to cancel at least six passenger cars in the U.S. market after 2020, including the Chevrolet Volt hybrid, which could be replaced in 2022 with a new gasoline-electric crossover model.” Other GM production cuts may be aimed at the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Cadillac XTS, Chevrolet Impala and Chevrolet Sonic, Reuters sources added. DEPENDENCY ON GM: In its 2016 annual report the company note...
Next time you take your trash out or see your neighbor’s cans on the side of the garage/house – I hope you now think of dividend investing. This dividend stock analysis proudly brings Waste Management (WM) to the forefront this summer. We performed a dividend stock analysis on this company and industry competition to see if they appear to be or appear not to be attractive for a stock purchase. Time to dumpster dive into the stock! The Stock – Waste Management (WM) I was driving around my neighborhood and was surrounded by a few waste disposal service trucks, massive trucks, that is. I though to myself, wow, my one neighborhood has a TON...
If this pattern is a standard A-B-C correction lower; the target is 1.2826 calculated by Wave C being the same length of Wave A. Also, this brings into another common level–prior Wave 4 of the impulse higher at 1.2808. Support for our GBP/JPY short it may be…...
My apologies for the dearth of morning missives this week. As I mentioned, I have been technology- and communications-challenged of late. However, the good news is that my tech travails appear to be coming to an end as I have a shiny new computer, a landline phone, AND upgraded internet. It will suffice to say that I am now a happy camper. Here’s a “quick take” on what’s happening in the markets this morning – for those that aren’t on the golf course or at the beach with the kids, that is! Hawkish comments from Super Mario, oil, earnings from the likes of Visa, GE, and Mr. Softie, and new developments in the Russia probe are captu...
The gold-futures and silver-futures short positions held by speculators have rocketed up to extremes in recent weeks. These elite traders are aggressively betting for further weakness in gold and silver prices. But history has proven extreme shorts are a powerful contrarian indicator. Right as speculators wax the most bearish as evidenced by their collective bets, gold and silver decisively bottom and birth major new rallies. Futures trading has a wildly-outsized impact on gold and silver prices, especially over the short term. It is amazing how much volatility futures speculators’ collective buying and selling generates, often drowning out...
For investors seeking momentum, First Trust Europe AlphaDEX Fund (FEP – Free Report) is probably on radar now. The fund just hit a 52-week high, and is up about 30.7% from its 52-week low price of $27.67 per share. But are more gains in store for this ETF? Let’s take a quick look at the fund and the near-term outlook on it to get a better idea on where it might be headed: FEP in Focus This fund targets the European stock market with a slightly active choice as it uses the AlphaDEX methodology to select the stock. It has key holdings in consumer discretionary, industrials, financials, and materials, and is highly diversified ...
With the news flow we’ve seen thus far in 2017, it would have been difficult to predict any broad-based strategies focused on European equities being up 20% or more around the half-year point. Yet:1 European equity indexes have significantly outperformed U.S. equities, giving credence to the belief that after elections ended up outside of the “disaster” scenarios, broad-based equity recovery has occurred. With the euro up 8.62% year-to-date, many investors have been looking for unhedged exposures. WisdomTree has two strategies, the WisdomTree Europe Domestic Economy Index and the WisdomTree Europe Quality Dividend Growth Index, tha...