| Market Closes Mostly Higher |
Market close commentary for 17 July 2013.
Gary could not post the market close today because of service failure
by Comcast. The market close is brought to you from our content
sharing partner Investing.com:
Rising regional manufacturing output and falling jobless claims
in the U.S. coupled with reassuring words from Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke sent stocks rising on Thursday.
At the close of U.S. trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
finished up 0.50%, the S&P 500 index also ended up 0.50%, while the
Nasdaq Composite index rose 0.04%.
Read more >>
|
| What We Read Today 18 July 2013 |
Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today's list.
The top of today's reading list has ........ and the last article is ........
Read more >>
|
| Rail Week Ending 13 July 2013: Mixed Growth Dynamics |
Econintersect: Week 28 of 2013 ending 13 July shows same week total
rail traffic (from same week one year ago) declined according to data
released by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). Railcar count
is down, but intermodal count is up.
- Weekly overall data is down, but up marginally ignoring coal and grain;
- Four week rolling average is declining (seasonally normal), but better than the rolling average one year ago;
- 13 week rolling average is declining (seasonally normal), but better than the rolling average one year ago;
- 52 week rolling average is declining, but better than the rolling average one year ago;
Read more >>
|
| Markets Melt Off Morning Highs Waiting For Dr. Ben To Stumble |
Midday Market Commentary For 07-18-2013
By noon the markets backed off the historical highs and investors are
wondering what the candle wick is going to look like compared to the
May 22, 2013 highs. There are sign that this is the first step to higher
highs as well as this is high as it is going to get.
Place your bets gentlemen as it is going to get interesting as the
session progresses and Dr. Ben does his best to explain why his way is
good and why we should all love free ice cream.
Read more >>
|
| Nokia's Phone Sales Disappoint |
Nokia
reported disappointing quarterly sales, with sales of its Lumia
smartphones and regular mobile phones missing expectations.
|
| Volume Moderate As New Historical Highs Are Made |
Opening Market Commentary For 07-18-2013
If you like gambling, this is the market casino for you. The futures
eased up to the top of the SP500 futures, which coincides with the 500's
historical high, and backed off. The premarket was not overly active,
thus not gleaning any clues to what Mr. Market might do today.
The markets opened higher as expected and by 10 am the SP500 made new
highs of a few points (2.51) and the DOW also made a new historical
high. The question now are these new highs going to remain at the close?
Read more >>
|
| June 2013 Leading Economic Index Now Projecting Moderate Growth |
Written by Steven Hansen
The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. was
unchanged in June to 95.3 (2004 = 100). Overall, the index value has
been slowly trending up. This index is designed to forecast the economy
six months in advance. The market expected a 0.2% to 0.3% improvement
in the LEI (versus the 0.0% reported).
Both the LEI and ECRI's WLI are forecasting improving growth for the
next six months.
Read more >>
|
| July 2013 Philly Fed Business Outlook Strong, Above Expectations |
Written by Steven Hansen
The Philly Fed Business Outlook Survey moved higher in positive
territory. This survey has been negative for 9 of the last 15 months.
Key element new orders continued in expansion territory - but was not as
strongly in expansion as last month.
This is a very noisy index which readers should be reminded is sentiment
based. The Philly Fed historically is one of the more negative of all
the Fed manufacturing surveys.
The market was expecting the index value of 3.0 to 5.3 (actual was
19.8). Positive numbers indicate market expansion, negative numbers
indicate contraction.
Read more >>
|
| 13 Jul 2013 Unemployment Claims Improved |
Blue Line 4 Week Average
The market was expecting 345,000 vs the 334,000 reported. The more important 4 week moving average improved, moving from 351,750 (reported last week) to 346,000. Read more >>
|
| Money and America |
Written by Frank Li
America is not only a beautiful country, but also a great country!
One key reason behind America's greatness, as compared with her two
sister countries Canada and Australia, is because America became
independent from the British much earlier (What is America, Anyway?).
Unfortunately for America, there appears to be a severe drawback
attached to this earlier independence: forgetting, if not a total loss
of, history (America's European Past and Future)! For example, America,
the current super-power on earth, is repeating the same mistake made by
her predecessor, the Great Britain, with regard to [fiat] money, reserve
currency, and the economy ...
Read more >>
|
| Hidden Gems in Chinese Trade Data |
| Investing Daily Article of the Week
by Ben Shepherd, Investing Daily
There's little room for debate as to whether China's economy is
growing, since June's trade report was released earlier this week.
Exports fell by 3.1 percent from a year earlier and imports declined by
0.7 percent.
At the same time, the Japanese yen remains weak vis-a-vis the Chinese
renminbi, so Japanese-made goods currently command a significant price
advantage in the global market place, denting demand for Chinese-made
goods.
Chinese goods have become more expensive in Japan, one of China's
three largest trading partners, knocking exports to Japan down by 5.1
percent. The yen has depreciated by more than 20 percent versus the
renminbi over the past several months.
Read more >>
|
| How to Beat a Gold Shortage |
| Bullion Vault Article of the Week
Written by Miguel Perez-Santalla, Bullion Vault
 Gold is sold out! Or so you might think if you miss the true nature of coin supply...
Over the last few years, during the great investment demand for gold
and silver, we have seen sporadic shortages in bullion coins.
Many people have written about these shortages as a harbinger of
things to come in precious metals more widely. One of the fads is to
decry supply issues in silver and now recently gold. However, the truth
of the matter is less dramatic, if not quite so simple.
Read more >>
|
| Terminal Velocity (15) - 'Gatsbied' |
Written by Adam Whitehead, KeySignals.com
Oscar Wilde once said that 'Life imitates Art more than Art imitates Life'. The American Dream Factories in Hollywood and DC currently provide two opposing forces in this dialectic.
Hollywood has caught the zeitgeist with the remake of the Great Gatsby. Read more >>
|
| McKinsey: U.S. Can Grow Again |
Econintersect:
There are significant opportunities for the U.S. to create solid
economic growth over the remainder of this decade and for the 2020s. New
McKinsey research specifiess five catalysts that can quickly create
jobs and deliver a substantial boost to GDP: energy, trade, technology,
infrastructure, and talent development.
Click on graphic for larger image with footnotes.
Read more >>
|
| Earth's Gold Came from Dead Stars Colliding |
Econintersect:
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics presented findings
today (17 July 2013) that attributes the existence of gold on earth to
the collision of two stars. Unlike carbon, iron and other lighter
elements which can be created by reactions within a star, many heavy
elements require a "more cataclysmic event".
Artist's Conception of Two Neutron Stars Colliding
Click on picture for larger images from Harvard website.
|
| New Board Game: Plutocracy |
Econintersect: A new board game has been released with the name of Plutocracy. It is based on the Parker Brothers game Monopoly
which was released during the Great Depression of the 1930s. How do we
know about this game. We just caught a glimpse of it on the website Fabius Maximus.
The first very noticeable characteristic of the new game is the
dominant positions of Boardwalk and Park Place, which occupy a full half
of the board.
Read more >>
|
| Exxon and Apple Top Global Profit Ranking |
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
American multinational oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil was the world's
most profitable company in 2012, with a net income of 44.9 billion U.S.
dollars. The corporation is the largest refiner in the world with 37 oil
refineries spread across 21 countries, resulting in a daily capacity of
some 6.3 million barrels.
In 2012, Apple made a profit of 41.7 billion U.S. dollars, second only
to Exxon Mobil in terms of global profit ranking. The tech giant has
experienced a period of remarkable success over the past decade, reaping
enormous profits on the back of innovative consumer electronic devices
such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Read more >>
|
| July 2013 Beige Book: Rate of Economic Expansion Continues Unchanged |
 Econintersect: The consolidated economic report from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts (Beige Book) characterizes economic activity that "continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace since the previous survey". The previous report said economic activity "increased at a modest to moderate pace since the previous report".
Please see the end of this post for words the Federal Reserve uses when the economy is entering a recession.
Overall, the report indicates the economy is expanding, and because
the same words were used to describe economic activity - it is assumed
the economy is growing at the same rate as last month.
Read more >>
|
| Infographic of theDay: 8 Potentially Life-Threatening Situations that you Face in Daily Life |
This
infographic indentifies eight potentially life-threatening situations
that you face in daily life--both online and offline. Careful
consideration needs to be taken when making online purchases, selecting a
safe neighborhood, staffing your company, and even hiring child-care
services.
It also explores some alarming facts/figures and stresses that these
are real possibilities to be on the lookout for. Our goal was to help
readers avoid finding themselves in situations that could pose a risk to
their lives and wallets.
Read more >>
|
| A Word from This Newsletter's Sponsor |
What's the ultimate revenge on the IRS?
What's
the best revenge on the IRS? How about collecting up to three fat
income checks per month... truly tax free. That's right. It's 100%
legal. And there are no red flags. According to the Supreme Court
itself, the federal taxman won't be allowed to touch a nickel. Millions
of Americans do this already. Now you could too, for up to 36 tax-free
income checks over the coming year alone. Click here to see how... |
