Stocks start 2020 in melt-up mood
We’ve seen this before. And investors and traders seem determined to keep a good thing going–until it doesn’t work anymore. Today, January 2, the first trading day in the new year for U.S. markets, stocks were off to the rally races again. The...
Happy New Year!
3,2,1. The ball drops and we’ve all moved from 2019 to 2020. May the new year bring all the best to you and yours. Thanks for reading in 2019 and I’ll see you in 2020. Jim Jubak
2019 goes out with a hurrah!
Yesterday, December 31, all 11 of the sectors that make up the Standard & Poor’s 500 closed higher for the year. That’s the first time that’s happened since 2010. For the year the S&P 500 itself gained 29%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average...
A lot of data for a short holiday week
Trading volumes will be low and investors attentions will be focused elsewhere than the financial markets, but this is a week with a surprising amount of market news. Tomorrow, Tuesday December 31, China announces the official Purchasing Managers Index for...
More stimulus on the way in China
It looks like looser monetary policy is on the way in China for 2020. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Monday the government will study further cutting bank reserve requirements in 2020. It’s a good bet that the Premier would have raised the possible policy...
U.S. consumers deliver the sugar plums for holiday shopping
Amazon (AMZN) reported today, December 26, that the holiday shopping season broke records for the company this year. Among other high-lights five million new customers started Prime free trials or paid memberships globally, and the number of items delivered with...
Tariff news from China today should be enough to feed rally in holiday markets
We’ve got two short weeks coming up–since the New York markets are closed this week for Christmas and next week for New Year’s–when trading volumes shrink and it doesn’t take much in the way of news to move stocks up or down. I think we...
Lions Gate Entertainment up 8.27% today on Comcast news
Comcast NBCUniversal and Lions Gate Entertainment (LGF-A) have settled their differences. Comcast (CMCSA) will continue to carry Lions Gate’s STARZ and STARZ Encore channels on its Xfinity TV platform nationwide and NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service will...
India’s central bank flashes warning sign for all global financial markets
Of course, the Reserve Bank of India didn’t mean to issue a warning to all global financial markets. The minutes of the central bank’s December 3-5 meeting, released today, focus on the need to hold its benchmark interest rate at 5.15% after delivering 135...
Danaher and Nvidia get European Union approval for big acquisitions
Looking at the history of intense scrutiny and strict conditions for winning approval, no U.S. technology company can take approval from European Union regulators on a big deal for granted. That’s why the news from regulators on acquisitions planned by Danaher...
IMF raises China growth forecast on announcement of Part 1 U.S.-China trade deal
The new head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, has told China’s Caixin Global news service, that she expects the Part 1 agreement to boost China’s GDP growth to 6% in 2020. That would be an increase from the IMF’s previous...
Adding General Motors to my Jubak Picks Portfolio
Yesterday, December 16, I made General Motors (GM) Bargain Pick #7 in my Special Report: 12 Bargain Stocks Picks NOW. (That Special Report is available to subscribers to my JubakAm.Com paid site.) And I also added it to my Jubak Picks portfolio. On the bargain front,...
Service Master: Another global warming stock pick for my long-term 50 Stocks portfolio
There I was minding my own business reading “Invasive termites in a changing climate: A global perspective” by Grzegorz Buczkowski and Cleo Bertelsmeier (of Purdue University and University of Lausanne, respectively) when I got to the maps and a stock...
The markets say “Happy Holidays!”
This morning it doesn’t matter that the Part 1 U.S.-China trade agreement isn’t signed and that we don’t have more than the bare, vague outlines of the deal. This morning it doesn’t matter that the smashing Conservative Party victory in the...
Market decides it can’t figure out the news on the U.S.-China trade agreement
What if they announced a Part 1 agreement in the U.S.-China trade war but nobody could figure out what if meant if anything? Stocks would go nowhere. The Standard & Poor’s 500 gained all of 0.1% today and the Dow Jone Industrial Average matched that big...
Do you believe Trump when he says a big China deal is near?
Today, Thursday December 12, just five minutes after stocks opened for trading in New York, President Donald Trump, tweeted that the U.S. and China are very close to signing a “big” trade deal. “They want it, and so do we!” he tweeted. Of course, last week President...
Inflation isn’t exactly dead
Wall Street is counting on the Federal Reserve to stay on the sidelines until September and then resume cutting interest rates. Some big money advisors are even counting on the Fed to cut interest rates again before September. Bloomberg ran an interview this morning...Fed keeps interest rates steady; Treasury yields and dollar slip slightly
As expected the Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate steady at 1.5% to 1.75% today. The median forecast from Federal Reserve officials pointed to no change in interest rates through 2020. “Our economic outlook remains a favorable one despite global...
Democrats sign onto revised U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement with vote likely next week
Washington, D.C. is the home of the surreal these days but the timing of the announcement by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still raised eyebrows. Just minutes after the House committees investigating President Donald Trump voted two articles of impeachment,...
Dividend Portfolio member Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico up on USMCA news and November traffic
It certainly didn’t hurt that House Democrats have agreed to support the revised U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, and to put it to a vote before the end of this session of Congress on December 20. But neither did Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico’s (PAC)...
China exports drop again in November
China’s total exports dropped 1.1% year over year in November, the country’s customs administration said on Sunday. Total exports to the United States fell 23% year over year. That was the worst result for exports to the United States since February and a...
Surprise! U.S. economy adds 266,000 jobs in November; unemployment drops to 3.5%
The United States added 266,000 jobs in November and the official unemployment rate fell to 3.5%. The results were buoyed by the return to jobs of 41,300 General Motors workers after the settlement of that strike. But the November total was still impressively stronger...
China bond defaults head for another record year
With 15 defaults in November, total onshore bond defaults have hit $120.4 billion yuan ($17.1 billion)in 2019, according to Bloomberg. That’s close to the 121.9 billion yuan record set in 2018. While the $17.1 billion in onshore defaults seems insignificant...
OPEC does nothing and markets seem to be ok with that
OPEC reached an agreement today to cut an additional 500,000 barrels a day from production. In reality that action is close to “no action” since OPEC has been informally making those supply reductions for most of the year thanks to voluntary cuts by Saudi...
“News” on U.S.-China trade talks takes away, “news” on talks gives back
A day after “news” on the lack of progress of U.S.-China trade talks led to a decline in stocks, “news” of progress in the talks has led to a modest rally. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 0.63% today and the Dow Jones Industrial...
Oil climbs ahead of December 5 OPEC meeting
Call it very, very cautious optimism. Maybe. Oil prices climbed ahead of the December 5 meeting of OPEC in Vienna. The oil market got a boost from a report today, December 4, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that showed U.S. crude inventories fell by...
Earnings retreat for the fourth quarter?
Wall Street analysts always cut their earnings estimates as a quarter progresses. (Which then lets lots of companies beat forecasts when they actually report.) But for the fourth quarter of 2019, the cuts to earnings estimates for the companies in the Standard &...
Trump says, No hurry to strike a trade deal with China in 2020, and markets tumble
“I don’t have a deadline,” Trump told reporters today in London. “I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal. But they want to make a deal now and we’ll see whether not the deal is going to be right.” And with that financial markets that...
Here’s how to think about Danaher’s offer to exchange shares for the Envista spin off
Danaher (DHR) has announced an exchange offer for shares of Envista Holdings (NVST), the dental services and supplies company recent spun off from Danaher. After Envista’s September IPO Danaher still held 80.6% of Envista shares. The exchange offer would allow...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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