This Wednesday’s Nvidia (NVDA) quarterly earnings announcement will be the most watched earnings report of the quarter. Not only will Nvidia’s shareholders pay close attention, but many non-shareholders will watch as the results could have a big impact on the entire market. Quite simply, not only has Nvidia’s stock been the poster child for all […]
Summer driving season, lasting from Memorial Day to Labor Day is fast approaching. Typically, during driving season, U.S. motor gasoline consumption is 400,000 barrels/day above the average for spring and fall. As shown below, gasoline consumption has run at its lowest since 2012. Typically, above-average consumption rates start ramping up in April. Yet, this year, […]
The graph below shows that the price of electricity is surging. It has risen by about 8% annually over the last three years. Going back to 1955, there have only been three other price increases of a similar magnitude. The electricity inflation in 1973 and the early 1980s was related to the surging oil price […]
Wednesday’s retail sales and CPI data were weak enough to get investors back on the rate-cut bandwagon. As shown in the CME table below, the market now ascribes an 85% chance the Fed will cut rates in September and reduce them a second time before year-end. Retail Sales for April were flat (0.00%) below the […]
On Monday, the popular meme stocks Game Stop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) surged higher in yet another short squeeze episode. Fundamentally, both companies have been flirting with bankruptcy. But they have been bailed out on numerous occasions by coordinated short squeezes, allowing them to raise needed capital by issuing new stock at relatively high […]
After a brief spurt of volatility accompanying the 6% market decline in April, implied volatility (VIX) and volatility of volatility (VVIX) have fallen back to multi-year lows. The lesser known volatitly gague VVIX is down to levels last seen ten years ago. VVIX measures the volatility of the VIX index. While they do correlate well, […]
A few weeks ago, we wrote Economic Warning From The NFIB to share information from the latest NFIB small business survey. While the economy appears to be in good shape, the NFIB shows that smaller businesses, including some small-cap stocks, are suffering. Per the article: “the NFIB small business confidence survey declined in its latest […]
Apple’s stock surged 7% after reporting flat earnings and revenue growth. Investors didn’t seem to mind that Apple is struggling to generate growth. What mattered more to Apple investors was their pledge to buyback $110 billion of stock. According to Buybacks are Back by the Wall Street Journal, S&P 500 companies completed $181bn of buybacks […]
With just a few graphs, we can visualize how economic headwinds are about to get stiffer. Additionally, the graphs help us understand why President Biden has such low economic polling numbers, even among Democrats, despite such a strong economy. There are four predominant means by which consumers can spend. Income is typically the largest and […]