Reuters.com – Strong recovery is the big market risk: James Saft It may not take a Greek default or Chinese slump to end the bull market if we get something as prosaic as a strong U.S. recovery. And even if, as we might, we get all three, the good news story of stronger-than-expected U.S. growth… Continue reading How Useful Is The Labor Market Conditions Index?
Bloomberg Business – Bond Vigilantes Gone AWOL Boost Greek Risk of Expulsion The threat Greece poses to Europe may be gaining force through investor complacency. Money managers are accepting rates on Italian and Spanish government bonds at close to record lows. They’re rejecting the notion that the euro area’s higher-yielding issuers — the so-called peripherals… Continue reading Greece And The Bond Market
Bloomberg Business – Greece Needs 10 Billion-Euro Bridge Funding From EU Greece offered compromises ahead of an emergency meeting with its official creditors tomorrow as German Chancellor Angela Merkel remained unyielding over terms of the country’s bailout conditions. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told lawmakers on Monday that the government intends to neither tear up… Continue reading More On Greece
The Wall Street Journal – Central Bankers Bash ‘Audit the Fed’ Bill Three Federal Reserve officials criticized proposed legislation to expand congressional oversight of the central bank’s interest-rate decisions, pushing back against the bill as it is gaining attention. Fed governor Jerome Powell on Monday called the bill, known to supporters as “Audit the Fed,”… Continue reading More On The “Audit The Fed” Bill
<Click on chart for larger image> Comment In recent days the Baltic Dry Index plunged to new 30-year lows. What does this mean for the economy? Is this an economic situation on par with the Great Recession? As highlighted in red below, ship owners ordered three times more dry bulk ships in 2013 than they… Continue reading The Baltic Dry Index
The Wall Street Journal – Wall Street Says Fed Rule Hampers Efforts to Shrink Big Banks Big U.S. banks have a big, overarching concern with a new capital rule proposed by the Federal Reserve: Uncertainty. The proposed rule would hit the eight biggest U.S. banks with an extra capital requirement, scaled to each bank’s relative… Continue reading Bank Regulation
Bloomberg Business – Citi: Oil Could Plunge to $20, and This Might Be ‘the End of OPEC’ The recent surge in oil prices is just a “head-fake,” and oil as cheap as $20 a barrel may soon be on the way, Citigroup said in a report on Monday as it lowered its forecast for crude.… Continue reading Where Does Crude Oil Go From Here?
Subpar Earnings, Busted Bubbles, Low Yields, and Falling Stock Prices A transcript of the February 5, 2015 conference call. Handout (also shown below) Audio [audio:https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/SubscriberArea/020515.mp3|titles=Conference Call ] [hana-flv-player video=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/SubscriberArea/020515.flv” width=”600″ height=”495″ description=”” player=”3″ autoload=”false” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” splashimage=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/wp-content/themes/twentyten/images/splash.jpg” /] <Click above to view webcast> [pageview class=”PDFViewer” url=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/wp-content/plugins/PDFViewer/plugin.php?id=242″]
Factset – Earnings Insight for February 6, 2015 Q1 Earnings Guidance: Negative Guidance (84%) Above Average At this point in time, 62 companies in the index have issued EPS guidance for Q1 2015. Of these 62 companies, 52 have issued negative EPS guidance and 10 have issued positive EPS guidance. Thus, the percentage of companies… Continue reading Earnings Still Not That Good
The Financial Times – Commodities explained: Oil and rig counts OK, but what is a rig, exactly? These are not the big oil platforms in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico. They are used to drill wells, from where the oil is extracted. After the drilling is completed, a rig will be moved… Continue reading Which Oil Rigs Are Being Idled?
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: Fed’s Rate Dilemma: Job Gains vs. Low Inflation Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment Comes Into Focus The robust January jobs report highlights a dilemma for Federal Reserve officials as they enter a critical stretch in their policy deliberations: How hot can they let the job market run before… Continue reading The Fed’s Dual Mandate & Timing The First Rate Hike