David Stockman just published a chart so compelling that he didn’t feel the need to add any commentary. But there are a few things to be said about the tendency of public companies to repurchase their shares at the very top: “Peak buyback” is a sign that executives are seeing fewer opportunities to generate positive […]
Why Investors Should Be Terrified, In One Chart
Advisor Perspectives’ Doug Short recently published an update on margin debt, accompanied by several well-made charts. But it only takes one to make the point. See below for the relationship between margin debt — money borrowed by retail investors against their stocks and used to buy more stock — where Short has enhanced the visual […]
When Big Names Say Bad Things
Some well-known money managers have been badmouthing the financial markets for what seems like a really long time. Peter Schiff — just as in the early 2000s — has been correct but early in predicting another crisis. Marc Faber has been calling for a correction in US stocks since 2013, and has now upped his […]
Corporate Profit Pattern Emerges: Okay Earnings, Disappointing sales
CNBC has a daily feature called after-hours buzz that, it being earnings season, is full of corporate quarterly reports. And lately the same story has been repeated: decent earnings but weak sales and/or disappointing guidance. Here’s today’s list: AT&T topped analysts’ profit estimates by a penny on Wednesday, but revenue came in light as core […]
We’re All Hedge Funds Now
As negative interest rates spread from Switzerland, Japan and Germany to the rest of the developed world, people with money to invest face some life-defining choices. Retirees who need to generate 6% to avoid dipping into principal can’t get there with bank CDs. Pension funds that have promised an 8% return in order to meet […]
Another Reason To Worry About The Stock Market
The world is full of “carry trades” these days, and that’s a really bad thing. In general terms, a carry trade involves someone borrowing money cheaply in one currency or market and investing the proceeds in something else that offers a higher yield. The strategy is profitable as long as the currency being borrowed doesn’t […]
The Most-Anticipated Stock Market Crash
US equities have been going up for so long that most investors — especially those who were only recently enticed into the casino by the apparently easy money on offer — have trouble remembering the last time it was possible to lose big in stocks. Along the way, a whole slew of indices and indicators […]
They’re Lying to Us, Part 3: The Fake Stock Market
For the average person trying to decide how to feel about the economy, the single biggest data point is the stock market. When share prices are rising, the implicit message is that finance professionals — who, after all, dedicate their lives to understanding such things and should therefore know what’s happening — have decided that […]
Graham Dyer: Pretty Much Everything is Headed Down
The latest issue of Australian analyst Graham Dyer’s newsletter begins with the assertion that most of the world’s stock markets have entered a “wave 3” decline, which, according to Elliott Wave theory, is generally the longest and most punishing of the five-wave bear market sequence. Dyer then looks at gold and oil which, he says, […]
The Boredom Before the Storm (Time to Buy Volatility)
As eventful as the past few months have been (what with Greece, California, Illinois, Iran, the Lehman Brothers revelations, U.S./China trade friction, and record deficits just about everywhere), you’d think the financial markets would be agitated, to put it mildly. Instead, just about everything is range-bound, and the things that aren’t, like U.S. stocks, are […]
Bears Call For A Rally
After its worst year in living memory, the stock market is due for a bit of relief. Whether it turns out to be a dead cat bounce or a cyclical bottom remains to be seen. But some heavyweight bears are now placing their bets on the long side. Among them: Steve Leuthold, Leuthold Weeden Capital […]
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