Folks, we got another lackluster report on the employment front today. Applications for jobless benefits came in at 418,000 for the week ending July 16, up 10,000 from the week before. I’m an old supply-sider, and I’ve said many times that jobs and job creation are the best barometer of economic health. It looks like, [...]
Folks, this is a big time for earnings—130 of the S&P 500 companies report before the end of the week. These reports coincide with a debt-ceiling debate here at home and a situation where European banks are playing havoc with pricing. Let’s distill this, shall we? What’s happening in Europe right now all comes down [...]
Folks, the European contagion issue seems to have settled down on news that the European Central Bank will hold an emergency summit on Friday. Is this contagion issue over? Absolutely not. But Friday’s meeting might help to quell the panic in the French institutions. The French are the largest holders of Italian bonds, which means [...]
Folks, first it was Greece, now it’s Italy. More bad news about debt problems in the Eurozone caused the market to open down about 1% across the board this morning. I’ve been talking for a while about how the flow of funds from Europe affects U.S. equity markets. European fund managers get news like this [...]
Folks, today marks the end of several things—the month, the quarter and the half-year, which we discussed earlier this week. But it also marks the end of QE2— the Federal Reserve’s policy to stimulate the economy by buying treasury securities with money it created out of thin air. People will be arguing for years about [...]
Folks, we talked a little yesterday about Growthflation—this once-in-a-lifetime global growth story that’s coupled with inflationary pressure on the demand side—and I wanted to pick up on that more today. I believe that if we tune out the day-to-day noise—Greece, the Fed press conference, the pullback in oil this morning—and take a macro view of [...]
Folks, my good friend, Jeff Carter, joined me on the broadcast today. Jeff is an independent trader who’s also a commentator for CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox. He writes the wonderful blog pointsandfigures.com, which I highly recommend. Years ago he and I sat on the board of the CME together, where we helped usher in the electronic [...]
Folks, when you have a country with a debt-to-GDP ratio that rises above 150%, historically that country defaults. There’s only one exception, which was Great Britain following WWII—and the only reason they didn’t default was because their close ally, the United States, made sure they didn’t. They did, however, lose their status as a reserve [...]
Folks, as of close last Friday, we saw a market that was down for a sixth straight week. There is lots of negative news out there, including some especially apocalyptic comments from Dr. Doom himself, Nouriel Roubini. I’d like to go on the record of saying that he’s dead wrong. Here’s the God’s honest truth [...]
Folks, we’ve all seen this morning’s ADP Employer Services report, which shows that private employers added just 38,000 jobs last month. Considering economists had expected closer to 180,000, that number is a bit disheartening. Without job creation, our economy will continue to have a difficult time. We’ll get the government’s big unemployment numbers Friday, but [...]