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earnings

The Weekly Snapshot

By |2015-11-07T12:20:33-05:00November 7th, 2015|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Markets, Stocks|

Top News Headlines Obama sticks a fork in Keystone after company withdraws request. Valeant troubles continue; CEO sells stock after margin call. Bill Ackman having a very bad month. DOJ ratchets up scrutiny of drug pricing. Seeking information from MRK, LLY and, of course, VRX. Berkshire Hathaway's profit more than doubles; other earnings news last week was pretty poor. Economic [...]

It All Went So Quickly

By |2015-04-22T15:52:41-04:00April 22nd, 2015|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It seems a very long way from here, but it was only December 23rd when the economy was taken as “booming.” That was the day that excited economists under direct confirmation, allegedly, that this time was different. The Commerce Department had reported Q3 GDP up to 5%, raising estimates for business investment and consumer spending. The recovery had arrived, at [...]

If Sentiment Were A Currency

By |2015-04-08T16:50:18-04:00April 8th, 2015|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks|

The ECB having announced and then implemented at least some kind of QE plan, the entire economist community has adjusted their economic projections upward in uniform, flocking fashion. They haven’t had to make much of an adjustment because they never downgraded economic expectations much to begin with. That is why almost every news story about the economy (and not just [...]

Is The Long Awaited Correction At Hand?

By |2015-04-05T11:17:50-04:00April 5th, 2015|Economy, Markets, Stocks|

It's been almost 4 years since the last 10% correction in US stock prices, one of the longest stretches on record. Historically, on average, we get a 10% correction about every 18 months. More severe bear markets, declines of 20% or more, are associated with recessions which are hard to predict and fairly rare. Corrections are most often associated with [...]

Global Means Global; ‘Dollar’ Means Trouble

By |2015-01-27T16:23:23-05:00January 27th, 2015|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

In addition, and very much related, to durable and capital goods disappointment, some major bellwether earnings have weighed on jubilation over the “robust” economy. Caterpillar in particular was troubling, but as the lineup of excuses expands, the idea of “decoupling” is now even more pronounced. So, in addition to the energy sector dragging down earnings, overseas results will also add [...]

2014’s ‘Robust’ Jobs Market Produced No Wages, And Now No Spending

By |2015-01-14T17:51:33-05:00January 14th, 2015|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

For all the hype about jobs and the booming (GDP) economy, the major portion of the retailer calendar around Christmas was a total bust. In many ways it was worse than last year, which emphasizes simply how the business “cycle” as it was understood in textbook economics no longer applies. The US economy, indeed the global economy as there are [...]

Stock Market ‘Dilemma’: Future Wage Growth Or Slashing Capex?

By |2015-01-12T17:51:54-05:00January 12th, 2015|Markets|

Turning attention to that last bastion of monetary surety, equities, the oil slump might be the greatest challenge yet to the non-stop stock escalator. Earnings especially for the S&P 500 are being revised lower as energy companies weigh on results. And while there may be a tendency to dismiss energy as its own problem, there is much deeper unwinding underneath [...]

The Expectations Gap

By |2014-04-20T12:29:09-04:00April 20th, 2014|Economy, Stocks|

The stock market had a good week, up all four trading days, despite the continued mixed picture from the economy and earnings. Last week's economic reports continued the recent pattern of some seemingly strong reports mixed with some pretty obviously weak ones. Retail sales were better than expected but the year over year core growth rate is still at levels [...]

Finally Some Numerator

By |2014-02-07T15:52:15-05:00February 7th, 2014|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The official unemployment rate has been moving downward almost exclusively as the labor force shrinks so dramatically in proportion to the population. That wasn’t the intent for the design of the statistic, but the state of economic commentary being what it is has left most observers to draw their own conclusions (I think most unbiased people understand what is going [...]

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