It is not only paper gold which is Fake. Few investors realize that most of their investments are Fake. Fake news and Fake assets are everywhere. Let’s start with social media which dominates major parts of the world. Facebook, for example, has 2 billion active users. WhatsApp has 1.2 billion users and Instagram 700 million. There will obviously be quite a lot of overlap between the various social media. But what it is clear that these three Apps reach billions of people and their power is much bigger than that of any other media; Social Media has more impact than newspapers or than television and is the only media that 2-3 billion people f...
Yesterday we looked at the high probability of the European Central Bank taking a dovish outlook to markets at today’s rate decision and press conference. This very much fit the pattern of how the bank has communicated with markets throughout this year, as the ECB rate decisions in April and again in June saw a rather dovish outlook despite the rising growth and inflation figures that had been seen in the bloc. At today’s meeting, Mr. Draghi echoed the prior comment that the bank stands ready to increase the size and duration of asset purchases, while also saying that measures of underlying inflation remain low and that a ‘very substant...
Credit Suisse analyst Vamil Divan downgraded Pfizer (PFE) to Neutral and lowered his price target for the shares to $36 from $38. The shares closed yesterday up 26c to $33.62. The analyst, who notes he’s long been a supporter of Pfizer and continues to see opportunities for upside over the long-term, believes the stock’s upside drivers are more limited over the next year. Divan prefers other names in the Major Pharmaceuticals space, such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Merck (MRK). Growth of Pfizer’s Ibrance is slowing while global Prevnar sales are flat to declining, Divan tells investors in a research note. He adds t...
GBP/USD: The pair continues to retain its nearer downtrend weakening further on Thursday. Support lies at the 1.2900 level where a break will turn attention to the 1.2850 level. Further down, support lies at the 1.2800 level. Below here will set the stage for more weakness towards the 1.2750 level. Its daily RSI is bearish and pointing lower suggesting further weakness. Conversely, resistance stands at the 1.3000 levels with a turn above here allowing more strength to build up towards the 1.3050 level. Further out, resistance resides at the 1.3100 level followed by the 1.3150 level. On the whole, GBP/USD continues to face downside threats on ...
The market expectations for weekly initial unemployment claims (from Bloomberg/Econoday) were 240 K to 250 K (consensus 245,000), and the Department of Labor reported 233,000 new claims. The more important (because of the volatility in the weekly reported claims and seasonality errors in adjusting the data) 4 week moving average moved from 246,000 (reported last week as 245,750) to 243,750. The rolling averages generally have been equal to or under 300,000 since August 2014. Analyst Opinion of Initial Unemployment Claims The trend of the 4 week moving average worsened this week. This marks 122 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000...
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM – Free Report) is the world’s leading tobacco company. However, the company has been witnessing declining demand for cigarettes due to the ongoing anti-tobacco campaigns and government restrictions. In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also made it mandatory for tobacco companies to use precautionary labels on cigarette packets to dissuade customers from smoking, which has further pressurized tobacco companies. While the company continues to benefit from its strong portfolio of tobacco brands and have always managed to remain afloat and generate revenues with higher cigarette...
Well, I don’t think a few tariffs and quotas, plus “tweaking” Nafta, are going to do it. And blowing a hole in the Federal deficit ain’t likely to help. First take a look at the trade deficit as defined in the national income accounting sense (i.e., “net exports”), expressed as a share of GDP: Figure 1: Net exports (blue), net exports ex.-petroleum products (red), and current account (light green), as a share of nominal GDP. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BEA, 2017Q1 3rd release and author’s calculations. Notice that net exports have improved since the onset of the Great Recession, in part because of slower g...
A few years ago, mobile advertising seemed to be one of the biggest challenges to advertisers with many struggling to monetize the huge traffic they received from their target audience. The likes of Alphabet’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google and Facebook (FB) were good examples as they failed to match their massive user-bases with monetization levels achieved on their respective desktop platforms. However, that has since changed, and now, mobile advertising is one of the most crucial forms of advertising in most businesses’ marketing strategies. Traction in this business space began with text ads, then came display ads, and finally video ads. Video...
Back in January 2007, Netflix announced a bold plan to bring internet video to television sets. At the time, few believed they would be successful, but such skepticism was nothing new. The “death” of Netflix was predicted first in late 2002, not long after its IPO. Wal-Mart was entering the DVD-by-mail business, and who could ever compete with the all-powerful Wal-Mart? In 2006, it’s “death” was again predicted, when both Apple and Amazon announced plans to start movie-downloading services. Surely Netflix could not survive such a threat. But survive they did, only to find new doubters after announcing their plans for streaming v...
Clearly, the euro and in particular bunds didn’t get what they were expecting in the ECB decision (out as usual at 7:45 EST). It seems readily apparent that some folks were looking for a tweak in the language around the QE assessment. When they didn’t get it, the reaction in the single currency was perceptible, but the read through in bunds was obvious, and equally obvious was the bounce in yields that accompanied Draghi’s opening remarks at the presser: Here’s the euro, and again, the reaction to the policy statement was muted, but the move higher around the opening remarks is, well, remarkable: That’s pretty clearly a reaction...