Stocks tried to rally early but were pushed back in what turned out to be a wide ranging day. The durable goods number this morning sucked out loud. Not much sign of recovery there. After the bell, AMZN missed its EPS projection by a mile, taking the stock quite a bit lower in the after hours trade. GDP estimate for 4Q tomorrow. Have a pleasant evening....
The lifting of UN sanctions on Iran could well be a lifeline for companies in the oil and gas service and supply sectors. The oil price collapse has tightened E&P company budgets for development in North America, significantly reducing the potential market for oil and gas service and supply companies to operate in. Companies traditionally focused on North American markets are increasingly being drawn into potentially transferring their skills and expertise overseas, and the developments in Iran could open up a huge amount of new opportunities. Before the sanctions were recently lifted, 2014 data shows Iran’s oil and gas industry was a s...
How far would stocks need to fall to get back in line with historical valuations? Ron gives you an abbreviated history lesson on equity valuations from China to the U.S. How would your portfolio hold up in a 20% or greater market decline? Audio Length: 00:41:36...
It looks like the glitter of gold is shining once again. The $15 trillion selloff in global equity markets since May and the rout in oil prices are reviving the lure of gold for investors looking for safe havens for their money. When things go wrong in the markets and investors are uncertain which way to turn, they often turn to gold. Gold has been staging a rebound of late with trading either side of $1,100. Gold prices were off 0.3 percent on Friday at $1,097.90 but picked up in today’s trading, hovering now at about 1,103.00. Gold had dropped to a five-year low in December as the dollar strengthened and U.S. inflation remained stagnant...
With a plethora of mid-level announcements coming out during the course of the day, we could get quite a bit of volatility on Friday. However, we think that some longer-term chart gazing might be the way to go. Because of this, we will choose to continue to follow longer-term moves. Gold looking for value hunters Gold markets fell during the day on Thursday, but found a bit of support at the $1110 level, an area that was resistive recently. Because of this, it looks as if the call buyers are reentering the market and they will try to push the gold markets higher. At this point in time, we only buy calls. USD/JPY looking to break out With the ...
Oil’s continued plunge is vying with China for the early financial headlines in 2016. Yet many U.S. investors are missing the most important aspect of oil’s collapse: the dramatic effect oil’s falling prices are having on Saudi Arabia. In November 2015, I speculated that the Saudis may have to devalue their currency, the riyal, versus the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1986. Today my prediction looks prescient, as this supposed long-shot, black swan event is now becoming a distinct possibility. Saudi Arabia’s Gigantic Budget Problem The low price of oil – caused in part by the Saudis’ market share war – has blown a hole i...
Real estate brokers are still reeling from the news that December existing home sales rocketed by a blockbuster 14.7%, to an annualized 5.46 million units. And now I hear that Apple (AAPL) is planning on building a second new research and development campus that will need 20,000 new high tech workers. The housing crisis here in the San Francisco Bay area just went from bad to worse. It is all fresh fuel for a continuation in the bull market for US residential real estate, not just for this year, but for another decade. Friends in the industry tell me the eye popping numbers were due to the implementation of the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosur...
I used to get freely distributed emails (i.e. non-premium) from a well regarded service based in the UK. They struck me as very smart and very buttoned down. What they didn’t strike me as was guys who have worked on a manufacturing floor. When I saw their narrative remaining bullish the likes of Fanuc due to its Robotics component (in the face of what I knew was a near meltdown about to take place in Machine Tools) I quit their email list because I felt their analysis itself was too robotic. As noted before, Fanuc is a Machine Tool builder (and a damn good one) with a cool Robotics angle; not the other way around. Here is Fanuc’s latest ...
Facebook (FB) has had quite the day! Currently up almost 17%, the stock continues to make a push towards new all-time highs, and there is a strong chance that by the end of the day it will have achieved that. The frustrations for traders who put a premium on managing risk is that unless you are willing to take the chance on a major move downward, holding FB, or any stock for that matter, is not a possibility. For me personally, I don’t do the earnings plays because for every Facebook there is an eBay (EBAY) that will crush your portfolio with a 13% sell-off. And since buying or shorting a stock with a belief that you actually know w...
The Canadian dollar continues being one of the most active currencies out there. After recovering together with oil prices, it shot higher with them, with a more substantial move: USD/CAD dipped all the way to 1.3947, below the round and important 1.40 as WTI almost touched $35. But from there, we went back to the drawing board, 1.4050 at the time of writing. What’s going on there? OPEC is only around a third of global oil production and Saudi Arabia is a third of OPEC. Everybody wants Saudi Arabia to cut production, but are not willing to cut their own within OPEC. The case is the strongest with Iran, that has just come back online from...