Criminals now prefer Monero over Bitcoin because Bitcoin can be traced. Bloomberg reports the Criminal Underworld Is Dropping Bitcoin. Bitcoin is losing its luster with some of its earliest and most avid fans — criminals — giving rise to a new breed of virtual currency. Privacy coins such as monero, designed to avoid tracking, have…
Netflix (NFLX) stock climbed in premarket trading on Tuesday after an analyst upgraded it as part of a broader realignment of his strategy on media stocks. The new strategy favors subscription-based media businesses over ad-focused firms due to the growing trend of ad avoidance among consumers. Before that upgrade, another analyst suggested there’s a relatively high probability…
Happy new year! You will spend this year hearing about how much more expensive all our “stuff” will become thanks to rising commodity prices. Oil, copper, lead, zinc, etc. … it’s all going to go up. The reason is simple. While the market spent the last five years ripping higher, commodity prices have not. The chart below tells…
Last year’s recap was subtitled “Triumph of the Blowhards”. So far, my plea for the return of rational policy analysis (let alone facts) has failed to occur. But the struggle for sanity must continue. January. Don’t reason from accounting identities. From More on the Trade Deficit and Economic Growth: In an EconoFact post from Saturday, Michael Klein and…
As we head into 2018, the St. Louis Fed reports there is no financial stress. The STLFSI measures the degree of financial stress in the markets and is constructed from 18 weekly data series: seven interest rate series, six yield spreads and five other indicators. Each of these variables captures some aspect of financial…
Mobivity Holdings (MFON) and Chanticleer Holdings (BURG) earlier today announced plans to use MobivityMind, a blockchain-architected platform for commerce and customer communication, to power Chanticleer’s cryptocurrency customer loyalty and rewards program. “Chanticleer Holding’s brands, including BGR (Burgers Grilled Right), Little Big Burger, and American Burger Co., will leverage the MobivityMind platform to reward customers with…
In this week’s COT report, most major currencies and commodities remain outside of bullish or bearish extremes. Instead, the only position that looks extreme is long crude oil. Over the past week, speculators have added to their long crude positions, and there are now 679,047 futures and options contracts long the commodity. Given the size…
EUR/USD made a move in the last days of 2017 and closed the year above 1.20. This was not only an end-of-year move but a clear move, as it extended into 2018. What’s next? Can it hit 1.25? Here are two opinions: Here is their view, courtesy of eFXnews: EUR/USD: En-Route To 1.25 By Mid-Year –…
While the Western world was off for Christmas and New Year’s, the Chinese appeared to have taken advantage of what was a pretty clear buildup of “dollars” in Hong Kong. Going back to early November, HKD had resumed its downward trend indicative of (strained) funding moving again in that direction (if it was more normal…
Welcome to the first installment of Macro Mondays in 2018! So, you may recall back in November we talked about the perks of owning “common stock” and what that generally means. Today we are going to take a look at its counterpart: preferred stock. How do the two differ, who buys preferred stock, and is…
