Long-term trends grow from short term trends. We attampt to determine the short term trends and where they are pointing.
To say that the past year has been an extraordinary period for the global oil market would be an understatement. Entering into 2020, the commodity was still feeling the impact of the late 2019 drone attack on a Saudi Aramco oil processing facility. In early 2020, oil prices were highly volatile in the aftermath of the killing of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani.
Oil Demand Impacts Foreign Exchange Rates Read More »
It’s no surprise to any that have lived through the recent COVID-19 pandemic that the economy has suffered greatly. Individuals who relied on their weekly paycheck found themselves out of work for months and waiting on unemployment checks. Businesses have found themselves unable to employ workers and produce the number of products and services they’re used to. Recently, there have been a number of statistics released about how this pandemic is affecting the economy. Overall, there have been many disruptions, increases in bankruptcy filings, from May to June, and also from 2019 to 2020. Meanwhile, non-business filings fell, surprisingly. Here is a brief overview.
2020 Pandemic Bankruptcy Statistics Read More »
Innovation in the technology market gives rise to important investment opportunities. It only makes sense that new, useful technology improves lives, and people want to ride the wave of profits that come from the demand for such tech innovations. However, with technology always changing, it can be difficult to know which technologies provide investors with an opportunity to reap huge returns on their investments. The following are four investment opportunities creating considerable waves in the technology sector.
4 Investments Making Waves in the Technology Sector Read More »
AÂ mutual fund pools money from many individuals and/or corporations to purchase investments. Mutual funds have many advantages over buying individual securities. The major advantages of mutual funds are diversification, liquidity, and professional management.Â
Traders routinely fixate on short-term price movements in their chosen financial instruments. Longer-term investors need a wider focus on stocks, forex, indices, FED actions and commodities to gain a better market perspective. The performance of US markets is worthy of mention, particularly since the epic global meltdown following the financial crisis of 2009/10.
The Markets in Perspective: What Goes up Must Come down? Read More »
Technology and automation have changed the way we live. Often, it has made our lives simpler in ways we are not even aware of. The financial world has experienced some major changes over the last few years, due to the explosion of digital devices made possible by technology and more compact printed circuit boards (PCBs).
5 Ways Automation Has Changed the Financial World Read More »
One of Trump’s campaign platforms was that the U.S. wasn’t getting fair deals in international trade. His two biggest examples were NAFTA (trade with Canada and Mexico) and trade with China. And in 2018 the media panicked and drove the markets down anticipating that Trump would somehow destroy all trade and the U.S. would plunge the world into another depression. Then in November 2018 NAFTA (North American Free Trade) was replaced by USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement) which included  new protections for U.S. intellectual property, Digital Trade, Anti-corruption, and Good Regulatory Practices. It also included provisions “Creating a more level playing field for American workers, including improved rules of origin for automobiles, trucks, other products, and disciplines on currency manipulation.”And now six months later the Trump administration is taking on China. But China is not Mexico and it has a lot more clout so where does the U.S. stand in this fight?Â
U.S.-China Trade War: Who will Win? Read More »
In anticipation of the September 25-26 Fed meeting, CNBC ran this headline (Sept. 21): “Record High Stocks Face Fed Rate Hike.” implying that the Fed’s interest rate decisions actually affect the stock market. Common wisdom says that “falling interest rates means higher stock prices, while rising interest rates means lower stock prices.” At first blush this might sound logical because rising interest rates makes fixed income investments more attractive because they pay more and have less risk than stocks. So some of the available capital will flow into bonds, etc. thus starving the stock market and putting downward pressure on prices. In this article, Elliott Wave International contends that there is actually no consistent relationship between interest rates and the stock market and they present examples of how the exact opposite of what you would expect has happened.
Do the FED’s Interest Rates Affect the Stock Market? Read More »
A few weeks ago, I was telling a few thousand of my “closest friends” on Facebook that you can’t count your North Korean chickens before they hatch. North Korea has a long history of provoking the West with Nuclear threats then backing down in exchange for “concessions” and a “Treaty”. Typically this means a cash bribe from the West in exchange for a worthless promise from North Korea. After a while the Treaty gets broken and the cycle repeats itself. Â
Don’t Count Your North Korean Chickens Before They’re Hatched Read More »
As you probably know, the conventional wisdom on Wall Street is that investors will sell stocks in favor of bonds when yields reach an attractive level. So, it’s not surprising that many pundits blamed the DJIA’s triple-digit decline on rising bond yields. Let’s put that belief to a test.
Will Rising Bond Yields Send Stock Prices Tumbling? Read More »
