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Europe: +44 (0) 207 198 1634 Good morning. It was looking like it was going to be a bad day yesterday driven by a report from the Commerce Department stating consumer spending fell in December 0.3% which was worse than the 0.2% economists were forecasting. Additionally, November’s number was revised downward from a 0.6% increase to 0.5%. That’s a big swing […]
Good morning. The only person who might be feeling worse than Seattle Seahawk’s fans is Tiger Woods. Why? Because on Friday he shot his worst round ever as a professional golfer, an 82, and also his worst ever 9 hole score, a 44. Now it sure would be a lot of fun to talk about […]
Equities and the Economy Good morning. An interesting phenomenon is happening right now. I’ve seen this happen occasionally and it’s happening once again. That is that equity traders are taking their cues from the movements in the price of oil, specifically WTI. Early in the day WTI was getting pounded and equities were trading negative […]
Equities and the Economy Good morning. It was looking pretty good yesterday for most of the day with U.S. stocks trading nicely in the green, and then the bottom fell out. The FOMC finished its regularly scheduled two day meeting yesterday and released its post-meeting communique at around 2 PM Eastern and the market didn’t […]
Equities and the Economy Good morning. As I mentioned yesterday, its earnings season. The “fundamentals” in the equities market. And the fundamentals were not good yesterday. Microsoft, United Technologies, Proctor & Gamble and Caterpillar all came out with disappointing earnings and/or reduction in revenue forecasts, aka sales. If that wasn’t bad enough, Durable Goods Orders […]
Equities and the Economy Good morning. With potentially the biggest blizzard of all time (which I’m hearing is turning out to be a non-event) bearing down on the northeast coast distracting investors equities chopped around on either side of unchanged ending with small gains. The Dow closed up 6 at 17,679, the S&P 500 added […]
Equities and the Economy Breaking a four day winning streak the Dow and S&P 500 closed lower on Friday with the former losing 141 points (0.8%) ending at 17,673 and the latter off 11 points (0.6%). The Nasdaq bucked the trend closing 7 points higher (0.2%) at 4,757. The day might not have been good […]
Equities and the economy Good morning. Over the past few years I’ve occasionally said “thank you” to the Fed for its QE action in supporting the economy which helped drive stocks higher. Now I’m saying “Thank you ECB. Thank you Mr. Draghi!” Six years after the Fed took a similar step, the ECB took its […]
Equities and the Economy Good morning. Yesterday was a choppy day for U.S. equities ending with marginal gains as traders and investors digesting reports that ECB will announce new economic stimulus at its meeting today. The Dow closed up 39 at 17,554, the S&P 500 added 9 to 2,032 and the Nasdaq closed up 12 […]
