Headlines proclaiming last year’s 46% decline in the price of oil are designed to provoke fear while goosing readership and ratings. Professional commodity traders are having a ball and making tons of money as amateurs pay them big bucks to speculate on each day’s fluctuation. The Wall Street Journal noted that crude was at its…
Well this is not supposed to happen. 2015 appears to have started with the “bad news is bad news” meme engaged as the standard USDJPY-driven opening ramp has collapsed on the back of a triple whammy of terrible data (US PMI, Construction Spending, and ISM). The Santa Rally (theoretically due to finish at the close…
Distorted Markets We have always liked Eclectica fund manager Hugh Hendry for his sound views and outspoken manner. Below is a somewhat dated video compilation showing several moments in which he stunned his opponents in television debates by voicing uncomfortable and politically incorrect truths. Included in the video is a defense of speculators, entrepreneurs and…
The current inconsistency between mid (10 yr) and long-term asset class return-risk relationships suggests a shift to more conservative allocations would be prudent at this time. This inconsistency is due to the extreme valuations in stocks today. Based on the Shiller CAPE historical data for the S&P 500 index over the last 115 years there…
Shares of NephroGenex (NRX) soared as high as 200% on Wednesday after the company announced an excellent safety profile for its drug Pyridorin which treats diabetic nephropathy — diabetic kidney disease. Diabetic nephropathy is a chronic disease of the kidney caused by diabetes. There are around 19 million people in the U.S. diagnosed with diabetes….
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE When it comes to currency strength, King Dollar had a pretty good 2014! Speaking of strength, the US$ ETF (UUP)/Euro ETF (FXE) performance spread between the two, has been 23% over the past 6 months. (See spread here) The above chart, from Sentiment Trader, highlights that the US$ is now…
Even with stocks trading near record highs, equities remain the best bet for the ordinary investor. Stocks could easily jump another 25 percent before the bull market is done. The average price earnings ratio for the S&P 500, which accounts for about 80 percent of publicly traded companies in the United States, is about 19.7. That…
Debt is a rock, and spending reform is a hard place. The taxpayers of today and tomorrow are saddled with crushing obligations. Yet we must watch helplessly as leadership in Washington DC continues expanding government — borrowing what they can and simply printing what they cannot. Each day more Americans sense a reckoning is coming….
I have highlighted the more relevant items with green being positive and red not so much. Not a bad report, but there is slight deceleration in the workings of this ISM and that is notable in light of the strong USD. Review the entire report here. January PMI from ISM
QUESTION: Marty, your insight into the failure of Austrian and Keynesian economics was really eye opening. At your conference you said that Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand applied internationally not just domestically. I believe I have reached the level of understanding you have been teaching us. It is indeed global and clearly everything is connected. Is China…
