Bloomberg Business – Big Oil’s Plan to Buy Into the Shale Boom Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp., are jumping into American shale with gusto, planning to spend a combined $10 billion this year, up from next to nothing only a few years ago. The giants are gaining a foothold in West… Continue reading More On OPEC
Bloomberg Business – Oil’s Bad Timing Pressures Drillers as Banks Review Loans For many companies, credit lines remain a major determiner of how much growth they can achieve, said Spencer Cutter, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. The reassessments are traditionally done in April and October, when bankers will review both commodity prices and reserves, which are put… Continue reading Credit Lines For Oil Drillers
Bloomberg Business – The Global Liquidity Party Is Alive and Well, in Charts For markets, an up-tick in inflation combined with low real yields constitute a sweet spot — for now. The S&P 500 has jumped on the hopes that a benign rise in prices will spur spending and investment, financed by a low effective cost… Continue reading Liquidity In The Markets
The Wall Street Journal – High-Frequency Traders Fall on Hard Times Revenues at HFT firms from U.S. equities trading were an estimated $1.1 billion last year, down from $7.2 billion in 2009, according to research firm Tabb Group. That is the backdrop behind last week’s news that Virtu Financial Inc. had made a bid to buy… Continue reading HFT In Trouble As Volatility Remains Low
Bloomberg – U.K. Inflation Gains More Than Forecast, Breaching BOE Goal Consumer-price growth accelerates to 2.3%, fastest since 2013 U.K. inflation accelerated more than economists forecast in February, breaking through the Bank of England’s target for the first time in more than three years. The 2.3 percent increase in the consumer prices index was the fastest… Continue reading Core CPI Continues to Lag for Most of Developed World
Wall Street Journal – Saudi Oil Customers Are Tapping Other Wells Some oil importers, including China and the U.S., have reduced their dependence on Saudi crude. (Click through for interactive version and more charts) Reuters – OPEC leans toward oil cut extension, but non-members need to be in: sources OPEC sources told Reuters in February that… Continue reading Can OPEC Sustain Production Cuts?
Bloomberg – Cost of Protecting Against Market Swings Is at Its Highest Ever While the CBOE Volatility Index declined last week, the cost of protecting against large market swings has surpassed a peak hit following the Brexit vote, reaching a fresh all-time high. With the Federal Reserve raising borrowing costs and the political environment remaining uncertain,… Continue reading Broken Indicator
Comment Through March 20 the S&P 500 is up 6.01% year-to-date on a price-only basis. This is an annualized rate of 31%! These returns are being led by the FAANG stocks: Facebook is up 21.63% (144% annualized) Amazon is up 14.28% (84% annualized) Apple is up 22.14% (149% annualized) Netflix is up 17.80% (111% annualized)… Continue reading A Look At The FAANG Stocks
CNBC – How a possible Yellen departure could spark a fire under the Fed to cut its $4.5 trillion balance sheet On Friday, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari, the lone dissenter against the U.S. central bank’s decision last week to raise interest rates, the U.S. economy is still falling short on employment and inflation.… Continue reading More On The Fed’s Balance Sheet
Bloomberg Business – Bond Market Calm Is Threatened by Fed’s $1.75 Trillion MBS Shift Fed may start paring mortgage-bond investments later this year As far as bond buyers go, the Federal Reserve is pretty laid-back. Even as the central bank amassed trillions of dollars of debt to prop up the economy following the financial crisis, it… Continue reading Bond Market Volatility
The Financial Times – Outlook for US corporate profits dims Analysts pare down forecasts for 2017 at a time when S&P 500 is at near record highs The US corporate profit outlook has dimmed in recent weeks, with analysts paring back their forecasts, in a fresh sign of the risks facing the Wall Street rally that… Continue reading U.S. Corporate Profits