Tag Archives: Featured

Investors continue wrestling with the implications of last week's surprise rate cut by the Bank of Japan. . The yen is little changed against the dollar, near its 200-day moving average (~JPY121.50).  The euro moved from the upper end of its two-cent range last Thursday to the lower end on before the week.  The absence of follow through selling appears to have prompted some short-covering.   The $1.0880-$1.09 area may stymie the upside.  Softer Chinese data and a pullback in oil prices...

The fourth quarter 2015 earnings season is now in full swing. From what I have seen of the outstanding earnings surprises and favourable future guidance in the Grail Portfolios, there is enough thrust to propel them higher, as these three examples show. On 28 January Under Armour rose 22.6%!   On 27 and 28 January Cirrus Logic climbed 29%! From 25 January Covenant has risen 21.7%!   As of 29 January 110 stocks, or 37.4%, of the 294 stocks listed in Grail’s 5 principal portfolios have...

The price of the dollar was down 50mg gold, to 27.8mg, or if you prefer 0.04g silver to 2.18g. Why do we measure the volatile dollar in terms of gold and silver? There’s nothing else to measure it, certainly not the dollar-derivatives called euro, pound, franc, yen, and yuan. In the common tongue, gold was up $20 and silver rose 25 cents. More importantly, we want to know what happened to the fundamentals. Read on for the only proper fundamental analysis of the gold and silver markets… But...

On the very first trading day of the year, the Nikkei, DAX, and S&P 500 gapped lower, setting the tone to a particularly challenging month for investors.The last week and a half has been better, and this will likely carry over into the start of the new month.  Before January could slip into the history books, the Bank of Japan sprung a last-minute surprise by adopting a tiered system that includes a minus 10 bp charge to new excess reserves. BoJ goes negative, not completely unexpected...

The latest CFTC Commitment of Traders report covers the five sessions through January 26, the day before the FOMC concluded its two-day meeting and three days before the BOJ's announcement.  Speculators hardly changed their positioning during the period.  There was no gross position adjustments that we call significant, a bar we set at 10k contracts.   Indeed, in the most recent reporting period, there were only four gross position changes larger than 5k contracts.  The bears added 5.8k...

The US dollar turned in a mixed performance last week.  Firmer oil and commodity prices more generally helped lift the Australian and Canadian dollars, and many emerging market currencies.  These currencies initially extended their  gains ahead of the weekend in response to the Bank of Japan's surprise 20 bp cut on some excess reserves ( to -10 bp). The yen lost 2.25% on the week, its biggest weekly decline since the BOJ's surprise expansion of its Qualitative and Quantitative Easing in...

1) Korea’s Financial Services Commission will introduce a so-called “omnibus account” for foreigners investing in local stocks2) Malaysian Attorney General Apandi Ali closed the investigation into transfers of foreign money into Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts 3) The South African Reserve Bank increased the pace of its tightening 4) The Egyptian central bank eased restrictions on dollar cash deposits 5) The Turkish central bank raised its 2016 and 2107 inflation...

It is critical for an investor to be very vigilant during the earnings season, which already began on January 11 with Alcoa (AA) reporting its results. Not only do companies report their financials, but they also make other significant announcements, such as either raising or lowering their earnings guidance for the coming months. Given the importance of this information, it is no surprise that a company’s stock can often soar or plunge on these disclosures. Therefore, investors need to be...

The Bank of Japan surprised the market.  It did not expand its asset purchase plan, which was the main focus of many market participants, including ourselves.  Instead, following a rash of disappointing data, the BOJ introduced negative interest rates on some excess reserves and vowed to do more if necessary.   Today's action, like the expected decision in October 2014 to increase what Japan calls Quantitative and Qualitative Easing was on a 5-4 vote.  It has sent the yen and Japanese...

We had been tracking the budding scandal that implicated the office of Japan's Economic Minister Amari.  We had expressed our concern earlier this week that the scandal could sap Amari's office strength and be a distraction.  However, the situation unraveled quicker than we anticipated and Amari resigned earlier today.   He is the fourth ministerial resignation but by far the most important one to resign.  Abe's first term had been marred by scandals and they arguably contributed to his...