Trefis: Highlights Week Ending 12 July 2013
Written by Trefis
Below is a summary of the activity at Trefis during the past week that Trefis thought Econintersect readers would find interesting.
Trefis
is a financial community structured around trends, forecasts and
insights related to some of the most popular stocks in the US. It
provides the unique feature of allowing the user to model future
valuation based upon projected changes in components of each business.
It also provides communication capabilities among members, including
consensus of member analysis compared to Trefis staff analysis and
blogging opportunities for members.
Click on graphic for larger image and go to
Trefis interactive page.
Click "Read more..." to see our clickable table of contents and most covered companies of the week.
What We Read Today 13 July 2013
Econintersect: Click Read more >> below graphic to see today's list.
The top of today's reading list has an assessment that "Europe's debt-crisis strategy is near collapse" ........ and the last article is about a bipartisan attempt to reinstate Glass-Steagall.
US to deliver fighter jets to Egypt despite coup uncertainty
The
United States plans delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt,
despite the Egyptian military's removal of President Mohamed Morsi.
Washington has no labeled the Egyptian overhaul a 'coup' as that would
bar assistance to Egypt.
A Word from This Newsletter's Sponsor
The Death of the PC
The days of paying for costly software
upgrades are numbered. The PC will soon be obsolete. And BusinessWeek
reports 70% of Americans are already using the technology that will
replace it. Merrill Lynch calls it "a $160 billion tsunami." Computing
giants including IBM, Yahoo!, and Amazon are racing to be the first to
cash in on this PC-killing revolution.
Yet, a small group of little-known
companies have a huge head start. Get the full details on these
companies, and the technology that is destroying the PC, in a free video
from The Motley Fool.
Just One More Reason For the Crappy U.S. Economy
Written by Steven Hansen
This past week saw the release of consumer credit data for May. At first
I was surprised by the significant difference between the adjusted and
unadjusted data.
- The adjusted data was suggesting consumer credit growth was accelerating;
- The unadjusted data was consumer credit growth was slightly decelerating for the last 3 months (see figure 2 blue line below).
Read more >>
French Business Goes On the Offensive
Written by Hilary Barnes
France's top business leaders have
launched an appeal to the socialist government of President Francois
Hollande to recognise that it is only business than can generate jobs
and save the economy, not the public sector.
August Could Be a Tough Month for Gold
Written by Poly, Zentrader
If
gold's Investor Cycle Low were behind us, then this would be one weak
and lifeless 1st Daily Cycle. Typically the rally after a bloodbath
Investor Cycle Low is impressive enough where you just know it's a 1st
Daily Cycle. It doesn't necessarily need to be a V like rally, but in
general you should see broad buying day after day and strong daily
closes. By Day 10, a 1st Daily Cycle has typically gone a long way to
recovering much of the previous drop, but here gold has barely made a
dent into recovering any.
Infographic of the Day: Exposing the Student Loan Racket
Student
loan debt, now at $830 billion, has surpassed credit card debt-a
statement unheard of 20 years ago. Student loans, unlike any other form
of debt, CANNOT be forgiven via bankruptcy-these loans MUST be repaid.
Is this the next bubble to burst?
Not All Fed Governors Agree with Bernanke
Fed's Plosser: Wind Down Stimulus Programs This Year
Special Report from Investing.com
by Investing.com Staff, Investing.com
The
Federal Reserve should consider winding down its monetary stimulus
programs later this year, Charles Plosser, President of the Federal
Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, said Friday.
The Federal Reserve is currently buying
USD85 billion in assets such as Treasury holdings and mortgage debt a
month from banks to keep interest rates low, a monetary policy tool
known as quantitative easing designed to jump start economic recovery.
North Dakota: Real GDP Per Capita Grows with Bakken Production
Special Report from the U.S. EIA
by U.S. Energy Information Administration
In recent years, North Dakota has seen
significant gains in real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita,
coinciding with development of the Bakken shale play. In 2001, North
Dakota's GDP per capita was well below the U.S. average, ranking 38th
out of 50 states. Starting in 2004, the state's GDP per capita rose
consistently each year, eventually surpassing the U.S. average in 2008.
By 2012, its real GDP per capita was $55,250, more than 29% above the
national average. Even though the state appeared to be closing the gap
on the U.S. average before Bakken production began, the rising oil and
gas production likely contributed to the economic growth the state has
enjoyed.
Click on graph for larger image.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Ignore Headline, Unemployment Claims Improvement Continues
As Unemployment Claims Steadily Improve, Chances of Runaway Stock Market Bubble Remain High
by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner
The latest weekly jobless claims data
accelerated to faster than trend, declining at an annual rate around
12%. The July 6 reporting week had a slightly below normal increase in
claims for the first week of July. The rate of improvement in the claims
data does not support the gains in stock prices however. They remain
dangerously extended relative to the improvement in the jobs market.
That extension seems likely to get worse if stocks enter a parabolic
blowoff phase. This would play into the hands of FOMC hawks who want to
cut back QE.
The Labor Department reported that the
seasonally adjusted (SA) representation of first time claims for
unemployment rose by 16,000 to 360,000 from a revised 344,000 (was
343,000) in the advance report for the week ended July 6, 2013. The
consensus estimate of economists of 345,000 for the SA headline number
was too optimistic (see footnote 1).
The headline seasonally adjusted data is
the only data the media reports but the Department of Labor (DOL) also
reports the actual data, not seasonally adjusted (NSA). The DOL said in
the current press release,
'The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 384,829 in the week ending July 6, an increase of 49,778 from the previous week. There were 442,192 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012.' [Added emphasis mine] See footnote 2.
Dismal U.S. Consumer Spending to Drag Us Back into Recession?
Written by Michael Lombardi, Profit Confidential
While the mainstream economists were quick to believe that the
U.S. economy is growing as the key stock indices suggest, I stood by my opinion that it isn't.
After the first estimates of gross
domestic product (GDP) for the U.S. economy came out, a wave of optimism
struck and stock markets rallied. It seemed as if everything was headed
in the right direction.
Sadly, they were wrong.
North America Leads the Way in Mobile Monetization
by Felix Richter, Statista.com
Global mobile advertising revenue nearly
doubled in 2012, increasing from $4.9 billion to $9.1 billion. That's
according to a study conducted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and
market intelligence group IHS. The report identifies the Asia/Pacific
region as the largest mobile ad market in the world with revenue of
$3.66 billion in 2012. At $3.63 billion, the North American market is
just slightly smaller and Europe follows third with mobile ad spend of
$1.54 billion.