China warns its banks on holdings of U.S. Treasuries
Chinese regulators have advised the country’s big banks to rein in their holdings of U.S. Treasuries. Officials urged banks to limit purchases of U.S. government bonds and instructed those with high exposure to pare their positions. The directive cited concerns over...
Or maybe not: Layoffs spike in January Challenger numbers
U.S. companies announced the largest number of job cuts for any January since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, according to data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Companies last month announced 108,435 job cuts, a 118% increase from a...
What data we have shows a slow but stable jobs market
U.S. job openings dropped to the lowest level in more than five years in December. The number of job openings for the prior month were revised lower amid a softening in labor market conditions at the end of 2025. Job openings, a measure of labor demand, decreased by...
Will earnings this week be enough to restore tech leadership in the market?
A week of Big Tech earnings reports will confirm or reverse what sure looks like a sector rotation away from tech shares and into metal company stocks. The group known as the Magnificent Seven–Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Meta (META), Microsoft...
A new quarter but the same old Intel problems
On Friday, January 23, shares of Intel (INTC) fell by more than 17%. And they dropped another 5.7% today, January 26. Which was quite a turnaround from the stock’s recent performance. From 1 October 1, 2025 to January 21, 2026, Intel’s stock rose from about...
U.S. dollar continues to fall
Traders in the $9.5 trillion-per-day currency markets are betting on further losses in the dollar. Today, January 27, the dollar sank, deepening a four-day selloff that’s sent it to the lowest since early 2022, after President Donald Trump indicated he’s comfortable...
Could memory chip shortages, price hikes put tech earnings at risk?
Prices for memory chips are forecast to soar in 2026. but what just as bad/even worse it looks like chip customers are looking at serious supply shortages during the year. Higher prices and supply shortages could be enough to put earnings at risk at some high multiple...
Contrarian sell signal: Fund managers are “hyper” bullish, BofA survey shows
The latest Bank of America Global Fund Manager Survey has gone extremely bullish. The bank’s Bull & Bear Indicator has climbed to 9.4, a “hyper‑bull” reading that the bank sees as a contrarian sell signal and a warning to add hedges rather than increase risk....
Is Taiwan’s chip industry–especially TSM–moving to the U.S.?
Taiwanese semiconductor and tech companies, led by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), the chip foundry critical to global AI supply chains, have committed at least $250 billion in investmentS to build and expand chip, energy, and AI production capacity in the...
Got a question about economics–and investing? Get it answered every week on my new Substack Economics for Investors
Who is this economist? And why is her work on monopolies and the business cycle so important for you and your portfolio? Get those and any other questions YOU might have on economics answered every week on my coming Economics for Investors. One of the reasons I’m...
Atlantic wind projects are back on again–but for how long? Time to buy more EQNR
As I read about the latest attempt by the Trump Administration to shut down wind energy projects off the Atlantic Coast, I kept thinking about Laurel and Hardy’s great short “Two Tars.” The “boys” eventually lead the complete demolition of the cars in a traffic...
Meta signs new” deals to buy nuclear power–but check the details of what “new” means
Meta Platforms (META) unveiled three agreements last Friday to buy up to 6.6 GW of nuclear power by 2035 for its data centers. The deals do have an element that clearly meets my definition of new. Meta buy electricity from new small modular reactor (sMR) projects that...
Coming soon (from me): a new Substack “Economics for Investors”
Economics, yep, the dismal science, is the key to understanding 2026 for investors–and for making money in what is shaping up as a chaotic and confusing year. Notice I said “economics” and not “the economy.” I think that many investors already obsessively follow...
The financial markets shrug at the newest attack on the Federal Reserve
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond soared 2 basis points to 4.18% Monday in response to news that Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Fed chair Jerome Powell over his Congressional testimony on the Fed’s building project. Yep,...
Nvidia speeds things up in AI
I’d argue that the big news out of the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas wasn’t about new chips, or flashy hardware across TVs, PCs, phones, and robots. It’s all about speed: Nvidia (NVDA) pushed up the launch schedule for its new Vera Rubin AI...
The CPI numbers say the inflation rate fell in November; unfortunately we know the numbers are wrong
CPI inflation cooled unexpectedly in November–according to today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unfortunately, we know the numbers aren’t just dirty because the government shutdown prevented the BLS from collecting the usual price data. They’re...
Somehow Oracle just missed this little $248 billion item last week
When last week Oracle (ORCL) published its earnings update on the costs of its artificial-intelligence data center buildout, it didn’t include $248 billion in lease-payments committed for AI data centers. That cost, Bloomberg’s Chris Bryant reported today, December...
The road to rare earth independence runs through Lynas and MP Materials
If the United States (and other technology economies such as Japan and Europe) are serious about reducing China’s dominance in the crucial minerals called rare earths (and I believe they are), then you need to realize as an investor that in the next five years all...
Fed cuts interest rates again at Wednesday’s meeting but reveals no consensus on 2026
The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point Wednesday. But revealed a huge disagreement on the course for 2026. The decision cut interest rates for a third meeting in a row, moving rates to a new range of 3.5% to 3.75%. It marked the...
The interest rate cut on Wednesday is actually the least important news from the Federal Reserve in the coming week
In the coming week I expect that speculation about future rate cuts and who will replace Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve chair rather than the actual rate cut itself will generate the most interest among investors and traders. The financial markets have moved back to...
Unemployment among recent college graduates climbs
Recent college graduates have a growing unemployment problem. Young college grads (ages 22–27) now face unemployment rates around 4.6 to 5.3%, up from about 3.2 to 3.3% pre‑pandemic, and higher than the overall unemployment rate increase over the same period. The...
Improved odds for an end-of-the-year rally
”Buy on the Dip” is Back, baby! What other conclusion would you expect investors and traders to draw from the last month? Especially since the longer term record of this market has conditioned them to buy whenever the market dips by 5%. So far, this rally has traced...
Should investors who don’t own crypto worry about the crypto sell off?
On Friday Bitcoin dropped to $81,629, the lowest level since April. This crypto currency is now down 23% in November. That’s the worst monthly decline since June 2022 when the collapse of the Terra stable coin triggered failures across the sector. The problem for the...
Next week is Nvidia’s week
Nvidia (NVDA) will report earnings Wednesday November 19, for the quarter that ended on October 25. According to Zacks Investment Research, based on 13 analysts’ forecasts, the consensus EPS forecast for the quarter is $1.17. The reported EPS for the same...
I’m buying gold on the dip
As I wrote in yesterday’s post, I don’t trust the optimism in stocks as a result of votes to reopen the government. This agreement does nothing to fix the weakness in the dollar as a result of the huge deficits engendered by the tax cuts for the wealthiest pushed...
Back to normal? (Whatever that is.) And on to the end of year rally
Today the mood on Wall Street is, to me, astonishingly positive. TheSenate has voted to end the shutdown. The House will follow within days. (Not as much a certainty as the general opinion holds.) And then we’ll ge back to business as usual with the Federal Reserve,...
Pick #7 for my Energy Crisis Special Report: EQNR
From my 10 picks for the 3 energy crises Special Report on my subscription see JubakAM.Com. My picks for The Scramble crisis: Pick #7: Equinox (EQNR) Picking an oil stock for the energy future seems, well, counter-intuitive. Isn’t oil the energy past? Yes, indeed, but...
This week’s China deal parade begins–look for a chance to add gold on weakness
Heading into Thursday’s high profile meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping the White House has announced that negotiators have reached a framework for a trade deal to avert additional U.S. 100% tariffs that President Donald Trump...
Bad news, good news on coal use, and renewable energy in 2024
Coal use hit a record high around the world last year. According to the International Energy Agency, global coal use rose to 8.8 to 8.9 billion metric tonnes in 2024. That was the highest use ever recorded and 1% to 2.3% higher than in 2023. It was a third straight...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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