Weekly Economic & Market Review
And so another year has passed into the history books – the older I get, the faster they seem to go – and investors must again try to position their portfolios for a profitable year. It hasn’t been easy to do the last few years and this year promises to be just as challenging. The .. read more
Weekly Chart Review – C’est la vie!
Once again this week, strong economic data out of the U.S. was obfuscated by the ongoing crisis in Europe. For the week ending December 2nd, initial jobless claims dropped by 23K from 404K down to 381K. This is the lowest reading since February and the second lowest reading since the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, yet .. read more
Weekly Economic & Market Review
The economic data last week continued to defy the prognostications of impending economic doom. The vast majority of the reports were better than expected – although not good enough to disperse the Occupy (insert your city here) protestors. Based on the rate of improvement in the employment statistics, the occupiers encamped down at Wall and .. read more
Weekly Chart Review
Overall a decent week for the markets until Friday’s Non-farm payroll report. The BLS reported no new jobs created in August and revised July’s jobs downward from +117,000 to +85,000. Prior to the 8:30 am release, the German DAX was down over 3% on continued fears of the Greek bailout and pressure on European banks. .. read more
Weekly Economic and Market Review
I spend a lot of time reading the economic tea leaves. Given my well known distrust of politicians and government, it is a bit of ironic that I spend so much time poring over the details of government produced reports but there really is little choice. I also look at privately produced reports such as .. read more
Weekly Chart Review
Weekly Economic and Market Review
If the goal of Ben Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech and the recent FOMC statement was to weaken the dollar, well mission accomplished. Since Bernanke laid out the Fed’s options for creating more inflation on August 27th, the US dollar index has dropped 5% and all manner of risky assets have moved higher when measured in .. read more
Weekly Economic and Market Review
It was a rather sparse week for economic data but what we did get does not change the view here that the economic recovery continues at a steady, if unimpressive, rate. The same problems we discuss week in and week out haven’t changed nor does that appear about to change anytime soon. The housing market .. read more
