» 2012 » February

The February Advance Report on January Durable Goods was released this morning by the Census Bureau. Here is the summary on new orders: New orders for manufactured durable goods in January decreased $8.6 billion or 4.0 percent to $206.1 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This decrease,...

Dow 13,000 achieved. Mission accomplished!  That purely psychological and meaningless level will be paraded across CNBC and similar channels as a sign that all is well. A whopping 98 net issues advanced today though in celebration of that “milestone.” Sarcasm aside (that was sarcasm by the way)...

Ben Bernanke has said many times that Marriner Eccles, the head of the Federal Reserve in 1936/37 made a mistake by tightening credit (raising reserve requirements). Bernanke blames Eccles’s actions for the 50% stock market collapse in 1937 and the second leg of the depression that followed.Berna...

Via Email, here is a nice summary of European events from Steen Jakobsen at Saxo Bank in Denmark. Topics include the G20 Summit, Extend-and-Pretend Dogma, Capital Flight , and Geopolitical Risks. Steen Writes … Two Trillion Fantasy This week-end’s G-20 came and went without any real new ...

The $OEXA200R (the percentage of S&P 100 stocks above their 200 DMA) is a technical indicator available on StockCharts.com that can be used to forecast conservative entry and exit points for the stock market. The OEXA is used to find the “sweet spot” time period in the market when yo...

Foreword from dshort: Jason Leach, the Director of Research/Portfolio Management at Craven Brothers Wealth Advisors, sent me a PDF of his latest research — Sleepwalking Toward a Precipice: Our Observations and Outlook, Part I. Jason kindly granted me permission to share with the Advisor ...

Last year’s series of disturbing shocks to the global economy and to the willingness of global investors to take on risk were particularly unkind to the equity markets of the so-call BRICs, the four largest emerging-market economies: Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The combined equity markets of...

In a previous report, Headwinds for Housing, I examined structural reasons why the much-anticipated recovery in housing valuations and sales has failed to materialize. InSearching for the Bottom in Home Prices, I addressed the Washington and Federal Reserve policies that have attempted to boost the...

Crony capitalism uses its wealth to impose government regulations designed to hinder, cripple and destroy small business competitors. In the U.S. we now have the perfection of cloaked crony capitalism: corporate cartels use their vast concentrations of capital and revenue to buy the political lever...

An interesting article in the Swiss press this morning regarding the big Swiss drug companies, Roche and Novartis. Apparently the PIGS are not paying their drug bills. The numbers are big. The bills have been unpaid for years. Some excerpts from the article: Hospitals in Portugal, Italy, Greece a...

The Weekly Leading Index (WLI) growth indicator of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) came in at -3.5 in today’s public release of the data through February 17th. This is the sixth consecutive week of improvement (less negative) data for the Growth Index and the highest level (i.e., ...

The S&P 500 closed the week at a new interim high, up 8.60% in the first 37 days of trading versus 2.69% over the same timeframe in 2011. But what about volume? I’ve posted comparisons with 2011 after the first 12, 24 and 34 days of trading. Here is an updated comparison after the fir...