Saturday, April 21, 2007

Bull v Bear -- The Final Round

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The arguments between the bulls and the bears in the current market has one interesting twist: both are shaving off pieces of the economy an...

The Bull Argument

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Below I express what appears to be the bear's main line of arguments. Here is how the bulls are looking at things. While GDP growth is ...

Liquidity Fueling the Markets

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This chart is from a site called Shadow Government Statistics. I can't speak to the veracity of their computations. However, if the c...

The Bear Argument

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I admit it: the current rally is perplexing to me. In an attempt to try and figure out what exactly is going on I'm going to present wh...
Friday, April 20, 2007

Will International Sales Prevent a Bear Market?

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There are a lot of earnings reports coming out right now, and there seems to be a common theme. The US economy is weak, but international s...

How Strong is The US Economy

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From CBS Marketwatch. This is from a report on Caterpillar's earnings release. "In North America, sales volume was down significan...

The Markets Last Week

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What an odd assortment of weekly charts we have. The SPYs and QQQQs had a hard time gaining any traction until today (Friday) -- they basica...

Dollar Update

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Here is a weekly chart from Stockcharts. Notice the following. 1.) The dollar has broken through support and is now trying to find a new low...

Oil Market Update

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Here's a chart from Stockcharts. Notice the following points. 1.) The uptrend started in mid-January is still intact. 2.) The average ...
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Two Manufacturing Reports Show Slow Growth

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I missed the NY Fed's manufacturing survey on Monday. Here's the main point of the report: The Empire State Manufacturing Survey i...

Flight to Quality Underway?

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Below are three charts for the Utilities, Healthcare and Consumer Staples ETFs. The charts are for the price performance year to date. Not...

DR Horton's earnings drop 85%

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From Reuter's: D.R. Horton Inc. (NYSE:DHI - News), the largest U.S. home builder, said on Thursday quarterly earnings fell 85 percent, ...

A Deeper Look at Retail Sales

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The following is from the comments section and frankly needs no further explanation. Here’s the Shoppertrak monthly Year-over-Year data begi...

Foreclosures Increasing

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From IBD Home foreclosures rose 7% in March to 149,150, RealtyTrac said. The figure, which includes default notices, auction sale notices an...

US PC sales "sluggish"

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From IBD: The April index reading is almost 20% below the year-ago figure, and is 21% below the 12-month average. Worse yet for the major PC...
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Gas Prices Are Still Rising

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From This Week in Petroleum For the eleventh consecutive week, gasoline prices increased, climbing 7.4 cents to 287.6 cents per gallon for t...

What Percentage Subprime?

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This chart is from the WSJ's Marketbeat blog. Notice the large percentage of loans written last year to either subprime borrowers or s...

Debt Growth, Equity Prices and Consumer Spending

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The following is from an email I received that comes from an options group I belong to. The article is written by Dr. Marc Faber. First, i...

A Note on Core Inflation

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OK -- raise your hand it you DO NOT - Buy food - Eat at a restaurant - Cook food - Drive a car - Use electric power - Consume energy in any ...

Sub Prime Problems Start to Hit Bank Earnings

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From the WSJ: Of the six banks that reported earnings yesterday, four -- SunTrust, U.S. Bancorp, Comerica Inc. and M&T Bank Corp. -- saw...