Bloomberg Business – U.S. Hiring Accelerates While Wage Growth Stays Flat Payrolls rise by 222,000; unemployment rate climbs to 4.4% While payroll gains were broad-based and boosted by the biggest jump in government jobs in almost a year, wages were below forecasts, even with the jobless rate close to the lowest since 2001. Sustained hiring in… Continue reading Employment In Pictures
Bloomberg – Tim Duy: The Fed Is Losing Focus of Its Primary Mandates Core leadership at the Federal Reserve appears determined to normalize policy via interest-rate hikes and balance-sheet reduction. But they have run up against a significant roadblock because the inflation data stubbornly refuse to cooperate with their forecast. Don’t expect that to deter… Continue reading The Fed Still Desperately Needs Inflation To Pick Up
The Wall Street Journal – U.S. Oil Producers Find a Surprise New Market: China China, a large oil importer, is buying nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day from the U.S. It was a gusher few expected. What began as a trickle of U.S. crude being sold to China is turning into a flood, the result… Continue reading China Becoming Big Buyer Of U.S. Oil
The Wall Street Journal – Japan Shows Europe How to Dial Back Stimulus Without Spooking Investors Central banks have been buying bonds to stimulate the economy and inflation The European Central Bank is now wrestling with a problem facing monetary policy makers around the western world—dialing back stimulus without upending financial markets. But one central bank… Continue reading Using Japan As A Roadmap In Reducing Balance Sheets
Bloomberg – Late to the Battery-Car Race, VW Says It Can Still Blunt Tesla Volkswagen AG will start deliveries of its first standalone battery-powered models in 2020, around the time that Tesla Inc. wants to hand over 1 million vehicles a year. So why does the German carmaker think it can stop the U.S. electric-auto… Continue reading Auto Makers Continue Chasing Tesla
Bloomberg View – The Stock Market Has Entered Bizarro World Indexing is distorting the markets. No one really knows why, but there’s a precedent. Indexing is screwing up a lot of things. This is not news. Equity investors focused on bottom-up, fundamental analysis have been complaining for years about how hard it is to make money.… Continue reading Comparing Stock Indexing To Commodity Indexation
The Wall Street Journal – Silver Futures Plunge, Rebound in Flash Crash Silver prices briefly tumbled early in Friday’s Asian trading session with futures plunging nearly 10%, likely due to a trading error, before quickly reversing most of that decline. There have been numerous instances in recent years of a buy or sell order being… Continue reading Silver’s Flash Crash
LinkedIn – Ray Dalio: Central Banks’ Reversals Signal the End of One Era and the Beginning of Another Central bankers have clearly and understandably told us that henceforth those flows from their punch bowls will be tapered rather than increased—i.e., that the directions of policy are reversing so we are at a) the end of… Continue reading Ray Dalio Sees The End Of An Era
CNBC – Amazon engineer will let strangers on the internet manage his $50,000 stock portfolio ‘forever’ Mike Roberts started a Twitch channel on May 30, where internet viewers can buy and sell stocks in his $50,000 real money portfolio by voting for trades. He plans on leaving the funds in the trading channel “forever.” Nearly a… Continue reading Let A Stranger Manage Your Money
Bloomberg Business – Barry Ritholtz: The World Is About to Change Even Faster Lots of other industries are being disrupted. Consider the combination of genomics and molecular biology, and what this might mean for longevity and the treatment of diseases. We are seeing it in materials science and architecture, in chemistry and energy storage, in fracking… Continue reading Big Data & Artificial Intelligence Continues To Change The World
The following data comes from Robert j. Shiller of Yale University. He CAPE P/E Ratio is shown below. Only the 2000 Tech bubble peak was higher. Print-friendly pdf version of the charts in this post: View PDF