(Photo Credit: dadahappy99) Before tomorrow’s opening bell, Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) will report results for the fourth quarter. The Estimize community is calling for EPS of $1.16, two cents higher than the Wall Street consensus, suggesting a YoY decline of 13%. Revenues estimates of $1.17B are in-line with Wall Street, expected to fall 10% from the year-ago quarter. The darling of all teen retailers has been struggling for sometime now, with sales declining for the last 7 quarters, as teens move away from preppy logo-ed gear in favor of fast-fashion retailers such as H&M and Zara. Abercrombie’s international business has ...
Click on picture to enlarge Government Bond ETF TLT and Corporate Bond ETF LQD have done really well since the 2014 lows. Both are attempting to break short-term support with momentum lofty and curling lower. Trend change at hand or near? Bond and Utility (XLU) 10% decline in the past 4 weeks an interest rate signal?...
Over the weekend I read through Warren Buffett’s Annual Letter to shareholders, an item every investor should read. While it was extremely insightful, there was a bit in it that pertained to the topic I wanted to share with you today. Warren Buffett has zeroed in on a little niche in the market that he believes has “recession-proof earnings.” I like to consider it a stock market guarantee… Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a true guarantee in the stock market. But there are a few little-known and widely overlooked stocks that exist today that are the next best thing…if not guaranteed, they are at least recession-proof stock...
The S&P 500 opened lower and is off 10 points to 2107.5 late-Tuesday, but the decline has been orderly and lacking much conviction. With no economic data to guide trading, the Treasury complex finished lower and the yield on the benchmark ten-year is now 2.12%. Trading was quiet across much of the commodities market. While crude added 75 cents to $50.35, gold lost $5 to $1203. On Wall Street, energy (XLE) and utilities (XLU) bucked the bearish trend. Technology (XLK), healthcare (XLV), and industrials (XLI) are pacing the retreat. CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) hit a morning high of 14.69 and is up .84 to 13.88. Trading in the options market...
TM editors’ note: This article discusses a penny stock and/or microcap. Such stocks are easily manipulated; do your own careful due diligence. The era of rare earth elements export quotas and tariffs in China will soon be over and that could ultimately mean a new era of higher prices for REEs inside China, says Gareth Hatch, founding principal of Technology Metals Research and president of Innovation Metals Corp. Chinese REE producers are now subject to much higher environmental standards, which could further level the playing field for non-Chinese REE producers. In this interview with The Mining Report, Hatch discusses some of the la...
Because you’re an ag! OK, that was dumb. Let’s proceed….. The agricultural ETF shown below has been trying to bang out a bottom for ages. It has been in a grinding, multi-year downtrend as defined by the channel I’ve drawn, so if you’re looking for a low risk long position, you might want to consider the wonderful world of wheat and soybeans. ...
There is a writer we’ll call Don Quixote who is tilting at something that no longer really exists… the evil gold promoters that used to be taken seriously by innocents to the tune of near total destruction of their portfolios. Don once went on about the gold cult and I even highlighted his post because I had been going about the gold cult as well. The cult-like aspect of the gold“community” (? a dead giveaway) was real, and the group-think that the 2001-2011 bull market fostered was very strong and reallydamaging to those who did not question it tenets until it was too late. But here’s the thing… it is now 2015 and nobody takes ...
When the Nasdaq Composite Index hit 5000 in March of 2000, jubilant investors celebrated the milestone. Shortly thereafter, however, scores of individuals lost their collective shirts. Many witnessed losses of 50%, 60% or 80% of their account values on names like Cisco, JDS Uniphase and Pets.com. Back then, the euphoria was akin to unchecked greed. Today, the public is far more subdued. And that’s a positive sign. After all, how could we be in a “stock bubble” if we are merely revisiting the place where it all began? (Note: Actually, we have only revisited a nominal (price-weighted) starting gate. The Nasdaq would need to rise above 700...
Is the Chicago pension system so messed up and union work rules so entrenched the only way to change either of them is bankruptcy? I think so. So does Dennis Byrne who wrote on his blog today Chicago’s Only Salvation: A Detroit-Like Bankruptcy. This is a guest post from Byrne. Chicago’s Only Salvation: A Detroit-Like Bankruptcy Wait, I thought only the Republican Party was being torn asunder by a rift between the establishment middle and the fringe. That impression was nailed down, again, last week by the embarrassing fracture among House Republicans over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. But don’t forget l...
Is Japan Zimbabwe? How preposterous: Japan is an advanced economy that cannot possibly suffer the same fate as Zimbabwe. Right? Or could Japan get hyperinflation? Below I explain why Japan, and with it investors’ portfolios, might be at risk. The other day, when I was on a panel discussing unsustainable deficits in the U.S., Eurozone and Japan, the risk of inflation and Zimbabwe style hyperinflation came up. When asked about the difference about Japan and Zimbabwe, I quipped that there isn’t any. My co-panelists were all over me, arguing Japan is different. Notably that Japan could not possibly go broke because, unlike Zimbabwe, it’s an...