The Financial Post – David Rosenberg: U.S. market is on a high, but there’s still room For the equity market, returns in 2014 will be constrained by the starting point on both P/E multiples and profit margins. Of course, we are also coming off two years of 20%-plus gains in the market and while year… Continue reading Rosenberg Speaks
The Wall Street Journal – U.S. Bank Stocks Regain Their Allure An improving U.S. economy is prompting many investors to put more cash in bank stocks. Financial shares rose 33% last year in their strongest annual showing since 1997, outpacing the 30% increase in the S&P 500-stock index. The past year brought the highest flows… Continue reading U.S. Bank Stocks Have An Excellent Year
Reuters.com – Gold Analysts Get Most Bullish in a Year After Rout: Commodities Gold retreated for the first time in 13 years in 2013 as an improving economy spurred speculation the Federal Reserve would curb stimulus. More than $73.4 billion was erased from the value of gold-backed funds as some investors lost faith in the… Continue reading Bullish On Gold
Mineweb – Bernanke has set the stage for the Fed’s collapse – Jim Rogers With Bernanke’s term due to expire in January, Rogers says he will be remembered as “the guy who set the stage for the demise of the Central Bank in America. We’ve had three central banks in America. The first two disappeared.… Continue reading Will Bernanke Ultimately Destroy The World?
The Wall Street Journal – High-Speed Traders Form Trade Group to Press Case High-frequency traders are going on defense. To counter what they say is the industry’s unfair reputation as a disruptive force in the markets, a group of high-frequency trading firms have hired a pair of heavy-hitting political strategists and formed a trade group… Continue reading HFT Lobbies Congress
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Fed Reverse Repo Facility Usage Soars, Rates Low at Year End Usage of the Federal Reserve’s fixed-rate reverse repo facility surged before the end of the year as rates for borrowing and lending securities slide and banks shored up balance sheets. The Fed Bank of New York… Continue reading The Fed’s Fixed Rate Reverse Repo Facility
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – End of Extended Unemployment Could Cause Jobless Rate to Tumble The end of extended jobless benefits for more than 1 million Americans last week could cause the unemployment rate to tumble dramatically early this year, according to some Wall Street analysts. Nearly 1.4 million people received payments through the… Continue reading Unemployment Benefits & The Jobless Rate
The Economist – Buttonwood: Solving the puzzle Stockmarket investors are more optimistic than the fundamentals warrant EQUITY markets finished 2013 with a bang, with the S&P 500 index delivering a return to investors of more than 30%, once dividends are included. And investors’ optimism appeared to be borne out by trends in the American economy,… Continue reading Profits vs. Optimism
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – What’s One Day? Or Five? Or 31? Okay, so U.S. stocks are starting off 2014 in the red. The Dow fell 0.8%, and the S&P 500 dropped 0.9%. So what, you say. It’s one day. How could first trading day of a year have any predictive power as to what’s in… Continue reading Trading Minutiae
The Wall Street Journal – U.S. Issues Warning on Bakken Shale Oil The federal government issued a rare safety alert on Thursday, warning that crude oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota may be more flammable than other types of crude. The warning comes after two federal agencies spent months inspecting Bakken crude, including… Continue reading The Risks Of Shipping Bakken Oil By Rail
The Economist – Global house prices: Castles made of sand Monetary policy may call an end to the house-price party HOUSE prices are now rising in 18 of the 23 countries we track across the globe, compared with just 12 a year ago. America tops our table: the Case-Shiller index released on New Year’s Eve… Continue reading Housing