Filed under: Major Movement , Competitive Strategy , Barrick Gold (ABX) , Commodities , Federal Reserve Back in the late 1970s, the Hunt brothers from Texas tried to corner the silver market . That drove prices to $48 an ounce. Now, 31 years later, silver is shooting higher again. The March silver futures contract closed at $32.296 per ounce , up 72 cents. Since gold is expensive, investors are turning to silver to hedge against inflation. Many fear that the Federal Reserve will not be able to control the spike in commodity prices. The Fed is buying $600 billion of treasuries and keeping interest rates near zero. Continue reading Silver Near a 31-Year High Silver Near a 31-Year High originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments
AIG
Sweet Monday Mornings
Remarkable isn’t it? It has almost become like clockwork – I’ve never seen a pattern continue like this at a 80%+ type of success rate. Another wonderful surge in futures between 6 AM and 9 AM on a Monday morning, for no particular reason (not ev…
Market Week Wrap-up
– Leading global equity indices continued floating upwards this week while the inflation drumbeat just kept getting louder. In the US, the January y/y CPI figure hit +1.6%, its highest level since last spring, and some analysts were alarmed by higher food prices creeping into CPI data sooner than expected. China’s January CPI report was lower than expected at +4.9% y/y, but markets panned the figures as heavily massaged by basket revisions. In the UK, the BoE said CPI would likely continue growing at a 4-5% clip over the short term. The World Bank released a report indicating that food prices were up 15% since October 2010 and are now only 3% away from record highs hit in 2008. Commodities moves complicated the story somewhat. While silver has pushed out to 30-year highs, there were signs that inflated soft commodity prices were beginning to unwind, with cotton and grain prices both below recent highs. Crude and gold prices have been impacted by reports that Iran is sending warships through the Suez Canal and bloody protests in Bahrain (next door to Saudi Arabia), although WTI futures were well below recent highs seen in early February. The Obama Administration unveiled its $3.73T budget proposal for 2012, including an all-time high deficit of $1.65T, reflecting the tax-cut agreement reached with Republicans in December. For 2012, the administration sees the imbalance declining to $1.1T, giving the country a record four straight years of one trillion-plus deficits. Bond prices held steady after the details were released, and Congress sharpened its knives for a budget fight. The Feb Empire Manufacturing survey hit its highest level since last June, indicating that the US manufacturing expansion seen over the last several months is continuing. On Friday there was plenty of commentary out of the G20 conference, where leaders tried mightily to achieve some concrete steps in reforming the global monetary system. Fed Chairman Bernanke took a swipe at the Chinese in his policy address to the G20, warning that nations which keep currency values low create imbalances, while the PBoC’s Zhou continued to push for a higher profile for the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). For the week, the DJIA rose 1.0%, the Nasdaq gained 0.9% and the S&P500 was up 1.0%. – John Deere crushed earnings and revenue targets in its Q1 report and nearly doubled its guidance for FY11 equipment sales. The firm hiked its sales guidance for its key agriculture and construction units as well, and said its Q2 revenue would blow out consensus estimates. Later in the week Caterpillar released very favorable dealer metrics for the month of January, with North America machinery sales up a whopping 58% y/y in the month. – Iron ore miner Cliffs Natural Resources reported very strong Q4 profits on a big y/y gain in iron ore pricing. The company expects global steel production to continue to grow in 2011, although it warned that spot iron ore prices are unsustainably high. Reliance Steel also blew out earnings estimates, and said pricing would remain strong at least through the first quarter of 2011. – In tech, Dell’s profit was way ahead of the consensus in its Q4 report, thanks to a big improvement in margins. The company said it believes the corporate IT…
Gallup: The Unemployment Rate is 10%
Jobs…jobs…jobs… I’m beginning to sound like a broken record but it’s true: This economy is going nowhere unless we start creating some jobs. As for the recent drop in the unemployment rate to 9.0%, I’m not buying it since it comes from Uncle Sam. The real figure is likely closer to what Gallup is reporting today… From by Dennis Jacobe entitled: Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment Up to 10% in Mid-February “Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.0% in mid-February — up from 9.8% at the end of January. Underemployment, in which Gallup combines part-time workers wanting full-time work with the U.S. unemployment rate, surged in mid-February to 19.6% — mostly as a result of the sharp increase in those working part time but wanting full-time work. Underemployment now stands at basically the same place as it did a year ago (19.8%). The unemployment rate in mid-February is 0.8 percentage points lower than it was at this time a year ago, compared with a 1.1-point improvement at the end of January. This suggests that jobs are less available now than they were in January. More troubling, however, is the surge in underemployment. On this broader basis, current job conditions are barely improved from what they were at this time last year. Essentially, what has happened over the past year is that some people who were unemployed got part-time jobs but are still looking for full-time work. This is not much to show for a year in which many macro-economic indicators showed improvement. This is likely why Gallup’s self-reported spending
Global Cotton Demand Outstrips Supply
Filed under: India , Market Matters , Commodities Years ago, I remember a conversation among cotton traders: “Cotton is a straight line mover. When it moves it shoots straight up and when it falls its like a stone. … If you ever get caught on the wrong side of cotton, you’ll lose your shirt.” Someday, traders will tell their grandchildren about the great cotton bull market of 2009 to 2011, and how they bought 100 contracts at 60 cents a pound in 2009 and saw the price go to $1.9455 per pound. They will talk for hours about how they made $1.34 per pound on each contract (each 1 penny equals $500). So they made 134 pennies on each contract at $500 per penny times the 100 contracts. They will ask their grandchildren to figure out how much money they made. “Grandpa, you made $6,700,000!” Continue reading Global Cotton Demand Outstrips Supply Global Cotton Demand Outstrips Supply originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments
Goodyear Posts Third-Straight Annual Loss
Filed under: Earnings Reports , Goodyear Tire and Rubber (GT) Goodyear Tire & Rubber ( GT ), North America’s largest tire maker, posted losses in the forth quarter and for the year. This marks the third-straight annual loss. To stave off further deterioration, the company is closing its Tennessee plant. In 2009, union negotiations left the plant unprotected, meaning that it could be closed at the company’s discretion. Continue reading Goodyear Posts Third-Straight Annual Loss Goodyear Posts Third-Straight Annual Loss originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments
Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), AIG (NYSE:AIG) Drag Financials Down
The overall financial sector in the U.S. is under downward pressure, dragged down by Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and AIG (NYSE:AIG).Wells Fargo fell on the abrupt news Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins was retiring for personal reasons. Atkins had been indispensable over the last several years to the company, and his leaving is a real blow to Wells.AIG dropped after the company announced it was
On South Africa’s wasted human capital
A post on Egypt’s population is coming up, I assure you all. The importance of the subject merits doing it right. For now Suffice it to say that Egypt’s key to the future of the regions of Nasser’s Three Circles, the Arab world, Africa, and wider Islam…
January Employment Situation Preview: Signal to Noise Ratio is Poor!
Everyone realizes that employment is a paramount consideration in evaluating the economic recovery. With jobs, we try to squeeze information out of each data point. Sometimes the information is just not there. Most media sources do a terrible job of…
Do I See Lipstick On A Pig? Or Is The Stock Market and Gold Still Going Up?
As most sophisticated investors and traders are aware, the U.S. Federal government has run up significant deficits and the long term debt burden is becoming a drain on Gross Domestic Product. That being said, most economists are discussing the possibility of a major decline in the value of the U.S. Dollar going forward as inflationary
Crisis in Egypt Continues as Stocks Consolidate Above Key Levels
ADP Employment index took center stage after the market received a jolt of buying on Tuesday. Disappointing investors December’s ADP Employment index was revised down significantly throwing caution to the employment winds despite the index’s gains. The day saw the NASDAQ hang in a relatively tight range with the S&P 500 keeping above its 1300
Guest Post: The Case for Subsidizing Alternative Fuel Projects
By Bob van der Valk Dateline: Terry, Montana, February 2, 2011 On January 25, 2011 President Obama proposed in his State of the Union speech to eliminate $4 billion a year in tax exemptions for oil and gas companies as well as another $200 million a …
Darden Optimistic on 2011 – Analyst Blog
Darden raised its earnings guidance for fiscal 2011 and initiated third quarter earnings outlook.
