Archive:
Equity Markets
When the Federal Reserve launched its unprecedented program of quantitative easing in early 2009, it was difficult to predict how various asset classes would react. Now, as the Fed considers a second round of asset purchases, the first program has left a blueprint of sorts behind that could be useful in predicting how markets might […]
Recently I’ve come across several headlines comparing recent activity in the stock market to what occurred during the Great Depression, so I ran the numbers. The attached chart tracks the S&P 500 20 months prior (t-20) to its respective high prior to the Great Depression and the recent recession; ‘t’ indicates the actual high. You […]
As of this morning, not only have US equities (as measured by the MSCI)outpaced their global counterparts, but on a year-to-date basis it’s the only index still showing gains, albeit somewhat modest. Interestingly, as of this week the spread between the MSCI US and MSCI World index reached its highest spread of the year, mostly due to […]
After a bit of a lull in 2009, M&A activity–a gauge toward GDP growth–has begun to gain some momentum this year. Unsurprisingly, this uptick in M&A activity coincides with gains in business and professional services employment; a series that includes lawyers and bankers. M&A Activity vs. Business and Professional Services Employment The upward trend for […]
From Cantor Report: “ Cantor/DRYS: We Upgrade DRYS To BUY (From HOLD) On Valuation, Rig Exposure * We raise our price target to $8 (from $7) based on our 7.0x EV/EBITDA multiple to our new 2010 EBITDA forecast of $558 million (from $544 million). Given the discrepancy between our target and the current stock price, […]
As I mentioned in my US Week Ahead, any indications that Chairman Bernanke may not be reconfirmed could send ripples through the market. This morning I woke up to this headline “Senate Dems Not Sure They Can Get Enough Votes to Reconfirm Bernanke”. The market is still walking on broken glass after overcoming its biggest […]
Recently, I wrote about how Dell, among some other companies, should benefit from an approaching IT replacement cycle, that I believe is being underestimated by many wall street analysts. Well I came across this article today, which has the White House budget director blaming old computers for our government’s inefficiencies and ineffectiveness. It would appear […]
Here is an updated table containing my global macro trading strategies for retail investors. **For the details behind my global macro trading hypothesis, please see my past article on this blog and at RealMoney.
Hearing about GM’s new battery plant I started reminiscing about an article I wrote back in July of 2008. Will this movement in the U.S. have the same impact it had on Japan? We will have to wait and see.