Bloomberg.com – Gold Lending Rate Most Negative Since 2001 on Longer Refining The rate at which gold is lent for dollars is the most negative in 13 years as refineries spend longer recasting bars from vaults to meet demand from Asia, where consumers prefer smaller ingots and jewelry. The one-month gold forward offered rate was… Continue reading The Negative Gold Lending Rate
<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> Nasdaq.com – Retail Sector Benefits from Low Expectations – Earnings Preview We have seen Q3 results from 463 S&P 500 members that combined to account for 95.3% of the index’s total market capitalization. Total earnings for these companies are up 6.9% from the… Continue reading An Earnings Update
<Click on chart for larger image> Reuters – U.S. consumer sentiment at more than seven-year high U.S. consumer sentiment rose in November to a more than seven-year high as falling unemployment and lower gasoline prices boosted views on both current conditions and expectations, a survey released on Friday showed. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s preliminary… Continue reading Consumer Confidence Reflects Stock Returns
<Click on chart for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – The Inflation News Just Got Better A big reason stocks are doing so well now is something investors don’t talk about a lot: exceptionally weak inflation. Markets have gotten more good news on that front lately, as economists have been cutting their inflation forecasts even… Continue reading Inflation Expectations
Bloomberg.com – Pain Trade Ends for Bonds as Poll Says This Time Bears Right After the legions of market savants missed out on hundreds of billions of dollars in gains this year anticipating a tumble in bonds, you’d think they would have found another target. You’d be wrong. Given the chance to speculate on declines… Continue reading More On Bond Bearishness
The Financial Times – Don’t fear the dollar’s ‘orderly rise’ There are a lot of crowded trades in world markets today, but the most crowded of all is probably a bet on the dollar. The sheer breadth of the consensus is the best reason to be worried about a rising greenback; we do not want… Continue reading The Dollar
<Click on chart for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Stock Trading is Back. For Now Good news for trading desks: Wall Street is trading stocks again. Halfway through this month the average number of stocks changing hands each day stands at its highest level for the month of November since 2011, according to data… Continue reading Volume
The Wall Street Journal – Falling Oil Prices Test OPEC Unity As global crude prices plunged earlier this month, Venezuela’s foreign minister asked to see Saudi Arabia’s top oil official at a climate-change conference on Margarita Island, off the South American coast. Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, was expecting a plea to reduce oil… Continue reading Crude Oil Production & OPEC Infighting
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Japan Falls Into Recession Japan’s economy shrank for a second quarter in a row, after a sales-tax increase took the steam out of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ’s bid to turn Japan into a global model of revival. Mr. Abe, who has sought to… Continue reading Japan Enters Recession…More Stimulus To Follow?
The Financial Times – Corporate buybacks fuel all-time highs – but for how long? How to put a value on the stock market? Two questions loom over over all the others. First, how much will a stock pay you – what is the earnings stream that you are buying? And second, who else is going… Continue reading Corporate Buybacks Continue To Support Stocks