Sony reported lower than expected sales and EPS estimates and lowered its full year profit guidance yesterday, serving as a stark reminder that Abenomincs is hardly a panacea for Japan’s struggling consumer electronics industry.
Read MorePer some of our previous posts, it is getting harder and harder to find interesting large-cap consumer discretionary stocks. Many of the well known retail concepts like Target or Nordstrom are breaking down, while some of the luxury names, like Coach or Ralph Lauren are locked in persistent declines.
Read MoreThere doesn’t seem to be a trend in the US economic releases recently. In the past week we have had weaker housing data (Pending Home Sales), an ok production data point (Industrial Production), below consensus employment report (ADP), a weaker regional survey (Dallas Fed), and now today a blow-out regional survey (Chicago PMI).
Read MoreThe Treasury Department reported that in September the government had a surplus of approximately $75 billion. The budget deficit as a percent of GDP has basically halved since the end of 2011.
Read MoreCoach and Ralph Lauren are two US luxury retail stocks that are currently out of fashion with investors. Coach has been in a persistent downtrend since the beginning of 2012, and it has accelerated on the downside so far in 2013.
Read MoreTwo of the largest expenses for consumers are housing and gasoline. The gain in house prices suggest that the owner’s equivalent rent portion of CPI will rise in the coming months. Meanwhile, retail gasoline prices suggests that the gasoline component of CPI will fall.
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The overall consumer confidence index fell from 80.2 to 71.2 in October due mainly to the government shutdown this past month. The consumer confidence survey also takes the temperature of consumers in different income brackets. What caught our eye was the difference in confidence between the richest and poorest Americans.
Read MoreGetting timely data on house prices is tricky. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index tracks 20 cities but with a two month time lag. The latest data (August) shows a couple of interesting points emerging about the national housing market.
Read MoreCummins is leading the construction and farm machinery stocks down this morning after reporting revenues roughly $100 million under estimates.
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Using our relative strength point and figure charts, we are always on the look out for stocks with deteriorating momentum. Through years of managing portfolios, we have learned the hard way that 80% of portfolio problems will come from 20% of the stocks. The following are five stocks to be avoided in Europe right now.
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Apple’s earnings conference call is going on right now. They reported pretty solid headline numbers ($8.26 EPS vs $7.94 consensus expectations, $37.5 billion in revenues vs $36.9 billion consensus expectations). However, the stock is down about 3% in after-hours trading. Technically, the stock is stuck in ”no man’s land”.
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Is today’s positive surprise in Italian Business Confidence (97.3 versus 96.3 expected) foreshadowing a strong rebound in industrial production? We will find out in just a couple of weeks (November 11th).
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We use a very basic fundamental indicator to capture movements in the economy and compare them to stock prices. The fundamental indicator has two, equally weighted, pieces: 1) the CRB Raw Industrial index divided by unemployment claims, and 2) Consumer Comfort index.
Read MoreWe divide all stocks into two baskets: 1) cyclicals, which includes consumer discretionary, industrials, materials, technology and financials; 2) counter cyclicals, which includes health care, consumer staples, telecom and utilities. Generally the cyclical basket performs best when economic data comes in on the strong side of expectations and stocks have been in a statistical slump.
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The Pending Home Sales Index has been running quite a bit hotter than the Existing Home Sales Index since late 2011. This month’s report cooled that trend somewhat. The Pending Home Sales Index surprised on the downside in September. The consensus expectation was for no change month-over-month.
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