Some analysts claim that the housing bubble is back. Are they right? And what are the consequences for the gold market? As the chart below shows, the Case-Shiller U.S. National Price Index exceeded in February its previous peak from July 2006. Actually, some regional indices (e.g. for Portland or Seattle) are even more worrying. It…
Forecast for the EUR/USD currency pair Technical indicators of the currency pair: Prev Opening: 1.08860 Opening: 1.09829 Chg. % Of the last day: +0.91 Daily range: 1.09695 – 1.09902 52-week range: 1.0366 – 1.1616 Yesterday, aggressive purchases were observed on EUR/USD. The euro added more than 100 points. This is due to the victory of…
Note: Another blogging snafu as this post failed to go out in time for the 10am newsletter. Apologies Remember the debates about structural unemployment back during the beginning of this recovery in 2009 and 2010? The question was whether policymakers would write off a whole cadre of workers as ‘unemployable’ and formulate policy as if…
Two research firms disagreed on the outlook for TreeHouse Foods (THS) after the company reported lower than expected first quarter profit. Stephens upgraded the stock to Overweight from Equal Weight, citing the benefits of the company’s acquisition of Conagra Brands’ (CAG) private label business. However, Wells Fargo downgraded the shares to Market Perform from Outperform…
Today’s Stock market watch list Long BGC Partners (BGCP) Long TripAdvisor (TRIP) Short AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC)
CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (CNP – Free Report) reported first-quarter 2017 earnings of 44 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 36 cents by 22.2%. Quarterly earnings were in line with the year-ago number. While GAAP earnings in the reported quarter were 37 cents, the company had incurred a GAAP earnings of 32 cents in the year-ago…
Most people assume that oil prices, and for that matter other energy prices, will rise as we reach limits. This isn’t really the way the system works; oil prices can be expected to fall too low, as we reach limits. Thus, we should not be surprised if the OPEC/Russia agreement to limit oil extraction falls…
Earlier in the week we shared Pierre Andurand’s hedge fund note blame-casting his fund’s dismal drawdowns on “CTA flows eclipsing the gradual improvement in fundamentals.” The market sell-off is missing the larger picture, he proclaims. “Market participants remain extremely focused on micro developments like US crude inventories while the big picture has been telling us a different supply story…
The good news is that the slowdown in March was a blip: only 79K jobs gained according to the revised data. The excuse about the weather has turned into a valid reason. The job gains in April, 211K, shows a positive trend. However, the full employment theory does not seem to hold: big job gains and…
On Thursday, we noted that Bill Gross will do two things: talk about himself in the third person by asking, on behalf of you, “what does Gross do?“ short HY because Gross “doesn’t think high-yield spreads have any more to compress” With regard to that second point, we showed you the following chart: Well needless to…
