Questioning the yield curve. Is it wise?
This week, stocks hit all-time highs and continued to climb. Yields are also rising and corporate bond spreads point to investors being more confident with the current economic conditions. The yield curve, whose inversion set off alarms about the risk of a recession,...
Sneaker lunacy takes over China
Forget stocks, real estate, even cryptocurrencies -- China's hottest investment nowadays is Nike, Adidas, and Puma basketball shoes. Imitating a trend that harkens back to the Tulip mania in Europe in the 1600s, trading volumes on online "sneaker exchange" platforms...
Hong Kong crashes, Venezuela in tatters – US market hits all time highs
Hong Kong’s economy contracted sharply in the third quarter as it entered a recession. Third-quarter gross domestic product retreated 3.2% from the previous three months, after a 0.4% contraction in the second quarter. Two consecutive periods of negative growth mean...
A fool and his money are soon…
Softbank, made famous by its huge $100 billion Vision fund and larger than life CEO - Masayoshi Son, is now beginning to look like any other VC with a rookie at the helm. Last week, Softbank, which made a wild bet on WeWork, a company that is burning thorough $2...
Desperate times call for desperate measures
With commission free trading now the norm, banks must find new ways to attract clients to boost other parts of the business -- such as banking or financial advice or end up playing the float (take investor cash in money market funds and lend to institutions at higher...
Q3 2019 Corporate Earnings Season Starts This Week – Look out!
Earnings season begins Oct. 15, with banks - J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo scheduled to announce their third-quarter results, with Bank of America following up the next day. Banks’ earnings are expected to be ok despite low interest rates. But, the...
Where’s the catch? None.
Earlier this week, Charles Schwab announced that starting Oct. 7, clients can buy and sell stocks and ETFs listed in the U.S. or Canada online for free instead of the 4.95/$6.95 per trade fee. Next day, TD Ameritrade and ETrade reluctantly followed. Fidelity and the...
Deeply Disturbing
With the President facing impeachment, investors are cringing, thinking of a repeat of 1974 when Nixon went down and took the markets with him. But history suggests otherwise. When Andrew Jackson was impeached, markets cared little. When Bill Clinton was impeached,...
The movie is over..shed no tears
MoviePass, a company that started a too-good to be true service in 2017, of offering consumers a movie a day at theaters for $9.99 a month, has finally closed doors. They simply ran out of money subsidizing all those customers who took full advantage. Unfortunately,...