Loading ...Oil:
It was a big day in oil today as the price dropped over $4 to $126. It wasn’t the weekly US oil inventory that caused the drop as the volumes dropped almost 10 million barrels from the previous week; this was the largest drop since the 2004 hurricane season. The drop in inventories was […]
In many parts of the world such as the U.S. and just about any country that manages its currency (e.g. China, Latin America, Russia, OPEC nations etc) have seen inflation continue to climb. With inflation being so high and interest rates being low, the returns available on some fixed income investments (e.g. bonds) have a […]
An investor faces investment opportunities from local as well as international sources. Buying a stock on a foreign stock exchange brings with it some additional foreign exchange risk as can be seen by the following example. Within North America, an investor sometimes has the opportunity to buy a stock that trades on both a Canadian […]
I bought some more Nexen Inc (T-NXY, N-NXY) an oil and gas company at $39.40 after the International Energy Agency (IEA) said it plans on reducing the forecast of oil supplies after studying depletion rates on the world’s 400 biggest oil wells. Apparently the revisions (which represents an important change in methodology) to the […]
Economics:
Canada’s April inflation numbers increased to 0.8% for the month and 1.7% year over year. Canada reported food increased 0.8% in the month and energy prices increased 6.0% (this contrast to the US which strangely enough showed no change in energy prices). Although the year over year numbers are low relative to the other […]
Sometimes it’s better to lucky than good
Last week I got lucky with my call options on BCE Inc. (T-BCE, N-BCE) as I sold my position, just before they expired on May 17th. With the options I had the choice to either sell the position and take profit or exercise the calls and take delivery of […]
Housing:
US Home builders must be feeling more confident about the housing markets as the number of housing starts in April increased 8.2% more than 100,000 than expected but still 30% below last April. All the gains were in the multiple unit dwellings. The housing permits also increased by 4.9%, the first increase in 5 […]
