What has the street so spooked? The earnings report didn't look too bad, at least on the surface. Sales and earnings both topped estimates. But there may appear to be issues, operating income shrunk from the same quarter last year and net income was up a minuscule .11% . This is despite an Q1/Q1 annualized 18% rise in sales. Did Apple just [...]
Through January 31, about 54% of companies had reported and digested earnings announcements. Current estimates for operating earnings have been trimmed all the way back to $23.83 for S&P 500 companies, representing a year-over-year change of 0.42%. However, given the lack of momentum and the number of companies that have lowered and preannounced lower, Q4 is likely to see a [...]
Aflac's earnings this week beat consensus estimates by a penny, $1.48 v 1.47, which equates to 2.1% growth . The commentary centered around positive operating execution, small write-offs in the investment portfolio and on-going challenges with global currencies. My sense is that the stock has reacted negatively to CEO comments which reiterated guidance but cautioned that success this year may [...]
Financial markets in Europe have been a sea of tranquility since last summer. The ECB and Mario Draghi’s promise for unlimited interventions began another quieting period that suppressed bond spreads that has led to the premature “euro crisis is over” sentiment. During that time, the Greek settlement (or third default) on December 10 seemed to have abated the heavy pressure [...]
Here are a few good lessons. Perhaps describing his oracle, from Warren Buffett in 1979, "The future is never clear," and "You pay a very high price for a cheery consensus." And from Frank Napolitano, the irascible head of the firm who bank rolled my trading career in 1996.."Dougie, always remember...Cash is King!" If you've been following our weekly analysis, you've [...]
Buy low, sell high. It is one of the most abused of market axioms and says both quite a lot and nothing at all. Of course you need to buy assets when they are cheap and sell them when they are dear but low and high aren't exact terms and are, like beauty, amorphous qualities assigned by each observer based [...]
The GSCI Commodity Index ((GSG)) consists primarily of Energy (71%), but also contains Agriculture (14%), Industrial Metals (7%), Livestock (4%), and Precious Metals (4%). After breaking through both moving averages in the beginning of the year, the index broke out to the upside. The index is slightly overbought in the short-term, but given that it formed a golden cross on [...]
Headline employment continues to look tepid, but at least moving in the right direction. However, that does not square with the GDP report from earlier this week. The headline Establishment survey average of the past few months appears inconsistent with such GDP weakness. Economists have been quick to point to the BLS employment numbers as confirmation that GDP is not [...]
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