The Financial Times – Obama proposes $10 per barrel oil tax Plan is unlikely to be enacted but could influence Clinton and Sanders to change energy policies The White House is proposing a bold $10 per barrel tax on oil in a move that immediately sparked a backlash from an energy industry buckling under the… Continue reading White House Proposes $10 Per Barrel Oil Tax
Quartz – China’s top bankers who “disappeared,” were detained, or died unnaturally in the past year One of China’s top bankers and a former regulator fell to his death yesterday (Jan. 27) morning, and left behind a suicide note, after being put under investigation by the Communist Party’s discipline watchdog for possible corruption. Yang Zezhu,… Continue reading Bankers Continue To “Disappear” In China
<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Super Bowl TV Commercials Reign, Even in a Digital World Ad prices for the big game have increased about 75% during the past decade, according to ad-tracker Kantar Media. This year, companies are paying broadcaster CBS up to… Continue reading Super Bowl By The Numbers
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Bond Markets Are Underestimating the Fed, Goldman and Pimco Warn Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co. say bonds are poised to fall and traders aren’t prepared for how far the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates. “Ten-year yields are likely to go up,” Jan… Continue reading Markets Say Goodbye To A 2016 Hike
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Why an Oil Price Rally Is So Slippery Consider what transpired last week: Supply was the issue as leaders of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries quickly quashed the notion that they would agree to cuts with nonmember Russia to get the oil-price… Continue reading Crude Supply/Demand
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Why Exchange-Traded Notes Face a Popularity Problem Asset managers keep rolling out scads of new exchange-traded funds based on slicing and dicing the investment universe. But companies haven’t been introducing many of the ETF cousins known as exchange-traded notes, or ETNs. While ETFs are… Continue reading Exchange Traded Notes
<Click on chart for larger image> MarketWatch – Ugly earnings may mean a scary 20% S&P 500 plunge A storm may be brewing in corporate earnings. Lackluster economic data, plunging oil prices petering global economic growth and a rising dollar are just some of the issues the U.S. stock market is wrestling with. All are… Continue reading Consecutive Quarters Of Declining Earnings Result In Bear Markets
Janus – Bill Gross: Increasingly Addled Today’s Fed and other model based central banks are, to my way of thinking, the ones that have more and more become “increasingly addled”…They all seem to believe that there is an interest rate SO LOW that resultant financial market wealth will ultimately spill over into the real economy.… Continue reading Critiquing Fed Policy
The Wall Street Journal – Fed’s Brainard Makes Case for ‘Watchful Waiting’ Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard thinks there are strong reasons to go slowly on further interest-rate increases. That opinion is an important one: The 54-year-old economist is emerging as a significant influence at an uncertain time for monetary policy and market tumult, and… Continue reading More Fedspeak
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Greg Ip: U.S. Debt Burden: It’s Gotten a Bit Less Bad Budget watchdogs for years have warned of a looming debt crisis in the U.S. The federal debt, already its highest as a share of the economy since 1950, is poised to rocket higher… Continue reading Debt To GDP
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Lex: Alphabet: Betting on the top dog Since 1980, fewer than 10 US companies have topped all others by market capitalisation. Alphabet is the latest, and by far the youngest, to take the lead. The search company, better known as Google, overtook Apple on Tuesday… Continue reading Betting On The Largest Companies By Market Cap