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July 2015 Texas Manufacturing Survey Manufacturing Activity Continues To Contract For Fifth Month

July 2015 Texas Manufacturing Survey Manufacturing Activity Continues To Contract For Fifth Month

Of the four Federal Reserve districts which have released their July manufacturing surveys – two forecast weak growth and three are in marginal contraction. A complete summary follows. There was no market expections from Bloomberg this month. From the Dallas Fed: Texas factory activity declined slightly in July, according to business executives responding to the […]
Knife-Catching Hedge Fund Oil Bulls Dump Crude At Fastest Pace In 3 Years

Knife-Catching Hedge Fund Oil Bulls Dump Crude At Fastest Pace In 3 Years

Hedge Funds’ net long position in WTI Crude collapsed 27% (the biggest single ‘dump’ in over 3 years) ahead of the big plunge last week (and is now down almost 60% in the last month – the most since 2010). Part of a broader deflationary collapse in commodities, as Bloomberg reports, long positions dropped to a two-year […]
Witch Hunt Is On; Foolish Ideas On Stopping The Shanghai Carnage; US Bubble Will Burst Too

Witch Hunt Is On; Foolish Ideas On Stopping The Shanghai Carnage; US Bubble Will Burst Too

Nearly 1,800 stocks, over 60% of issues traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges fell by the daily limit of 10% and were halted according to a Financial Times report. When contacted by the Financial Times, the China Securities Regulatory Commission refused to answer any questions.  The amusing comment of the day comes from Zhu Ning, […]
Bear Of The Day: Allegheny Tech (ATI)

Bear Of The Day: Allegheny Tech (ATI)

Allegheny Tech (ATI – Analyst Report) negatively preannounced their Q215 forecast due to difficult conditions for their Flat Rolled Products, and in the oil and gas markets as well. Further, declining nickel prices, and high imports of Asian stainless steel were additional headwinds for the company.  To compound matters, these conditions do not appear to be alleviated anytime […]
Six Miners Dundee’s Joseph Fazzini Believes Will Weather The Storm

Six Miners Dundee’s Joseph Fazzini Believes Will Weather The Storm

With ongoing volatility expected in the gold space, mostly owing to global economic weakness, investors should focus on quality gold names with three key attributes to weather the current metal price environment, explains Joseph Fazzini, vice president and senior analyst with Toronto-based Dundee Capital Markets. Fazzini says those attributes are low-cost, long-life assets; defensive balance […]
The What’s Wrong With This Picture Chart Of The Month – Durable Goods

The What’s Wrong With This Picture Chart Of The Month – Durable Goods

U.S. Durable Goods Orders Rise 3.4% in June, blared the Wall Street Journal headline this morning. As usual, not only is that not the whole story, it’s misleading. It’s wrong. It’s dumb. It raises the question of why the mainstream media adamantly refuses to report the facts. More importantly, why do they ignore the blatantly obvious […]
Forecasting Q2 GDP: Gazing Into The Crystal Ball

Forecasting Q2 GDP: Gazing Into The Crystal Ball

The big economic number this week will be the Q2 Advance Estimate for GDP on Thursday at 8:30 AM ET. With the Q1 GDP of -0.2% behind us, what do economists see in their collective crystal ball for Q2 of 2015? Let’s take a look at the latest GDP forecasts from the latest Wall Street […]
China: Major Devaluation Coming

China: Major Devaluation Coming

The whole “market economy” thing is turning out to be a little trickier than China’s dictators expected. To set up the story: After the 2008 crash the country borrowed about $15 trillion (an amount that dwarfs the US Fed’s quantitative easing programs) and spent the proceeds on history’s biggest infrastructure program.   This pushed up […]
China’s Market & US Economy Not Correlated

China’s Market & US Economy Not Correlated

“Davidson” submits: Bloomberg has a good article on recent volatility of Chinese markets which is a good read at this point in the global economic/investment cycle. China as part of the emerging market asset class (EEM) peaked in early 2011 and then had a recent spike which represented highly speculative anticipation by Chinese investors of’ […]