ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Food Stamps Go to a Record 37.2 Million, USDA Says (Update2) – Bloomberg.com A record 37.2 million people, or about one out of every eight Americans, received food stamps in September, as the recession drove a surging jobless rate, according to a government report. (tags: govt_spending poverty food_stamps) A Low May Be Forming in Gold … Read more
Britain to Levy a One-Time Tax on Banker Bonuses – NYTimes.com The tax represents the most direct attack on bank bonuses anywhere in the world. All banks in Britain — including the London-based subsidiaries of foreign banks — will be affected, whether they took government bailout funds or not. (tags: United_Kingdom banks tax_policy) Australia's Rudd … Read more
In a year where Chinese solar companies have generally out-performed American solar companies, LDK stands out as a laggard. LDK is down 31% for the year whereas every other major Chinese solar stock traded on the American exchanges is no worse than flat on the year. When Q-Cells announced it would terminate a supply contract … Read more
Good (or not as bad as expected) economic news has typically garnered selling in the U.S. dollar and buying in the stock market. On Friday, the good news that November’s monthly change in U.S. non-farm payrolls came in essentially flat sent the S&P 500 soaring as high as 1.7%. However, the dollar index also soared, … Read more
For Toll Brothers (TOL), history has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Over the last two quarters, TOL released preliminary earnings reports that propelled the stock to one-day double-digit gains on record trading volumes. For the second time in a row, the actual earnings report generated the exact opposite response. After the last earnings report, … Read more
China hints sticking to dollar despite worries | Reuters China has maintained a consistent allocation of its foreign exchange reserves across different currencies, a senior official said on Friday, suggesting that any diversification away from the dollar has been gradual. (tags: China currency U.S._dollar) Bullard: Jobless Recoveries Could Change How Fed Acts – WSJ.com Federal … Read more
Over the last four days, Sunpower Corporation (SWPRa) completed a successful retest of the March lows (intra-day low of $19.70, closing low of $20.91). The next price target is around $26.25 with a close of the gap created by the news of accounting irregularities at its Philippine manufacturing operations. This price level will likely meet … Read more
UK banks owed $5bn by Dubai World – FT.com / Middle East / Finance UK banks have an aggregate exposure to Dubai World of about $5bn, the Financial Times has learnt, confirming them as the biggest creditor group at the crisis-hit emirate holding company. (tags: Dubai debt default banks United_Kingdom) The recurring gold "bubble" A … Read more
“Mish” posted the latest chart from the Investor’s Intelligence Survey, and it shows that bulls are back up to 50% and bears have hit a new low for the year at 16%. (You can directly access two years of data using the chart tool at Schaeffer’s Investment Research). He also noted that bears have only … Read more
Now that major markets worldwide have completely recovered from the Dubai debacle of last week, it is easy to consider this episode just another blip on the way to eternal bliss. Not even the U.S. dollar could sustain more than a mirage of strength on this “temporary crisis” (I had thought that even after the … Read more