15 May
Economics:
There were lots of weak US economic numbers released today. Industrial production in April fell 0.7%, capacity utilization dropped to 79.7%, the Philly Fed index contracted again with another negative reading of 15.6, the New York Empire manufacturing index fell to negative 3 while the prices paid component posted a large increase to another record […]
Posted in Economics, Employment, Inflation, Inflationary Policy, Manufacturing, Stagflation by: arnie
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04 May
Should North American investors be investing based on an economic environment that is recessionary or inflationary?
As mentioned previously, the US economy seems to be in a bull market as bad news (such as housing or employment stats) results in rising stock markets. If the market responds to bad news by pushing up the stock […]
Posted in Agriculture, Ben Bernanke, Commodities, Economics, Energy, Fertilizer, Housing, Inflation, Inflationary Policy, Manufacturing, Oil, Portfolio, Stagflation, interest rates, natural gas by: arnie
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02 May
Recession or high inflation?
A stagflation is a combination of a recession and an inflationary environment; the economy is contracting yet inflation is high. If the governments were doing their jobs properly this wouldn’t happen, but since they all want to get re-elected they tried to continuously pump up the economy so that it grows at […]
Posted in Economics, Inflation, Inflationary Policy, Stagflation, interest rates by: arnie
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25 Apr
There’s lots of talk about what Helicopter Ben Bernanke and the FOMC will decide to do with short term interest rates next week. Apparently the market is no longer pricing in a 50 basis point cut in rates with some economists expecting only 25 or even no rate cuts. My feeling is that Helicopter Ben […]
Posted in Ben Bernanke, Inflation, Inflationary Policy, natural gas by: arnie
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18 Apr
Recap:
Wow, another big day in the market with the Dow up 228 and the TSX up 121. Citigroup posted another loss of $5 billion after writing down another $15 billion of assets. Oddly enough the markets were happy with the results, as they were neither as bad as the previous quarter $-10 billion, nor as […]
Posted in Commodities, Housing, Inflationary Policy, Oil, Portfolio, oil sands by: arnie
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14 Apr
Recap:
The TSX was up 55 and the Dow Jones was down 23 after another big bank (Wachovia) reported a quarterly loss and cut its dividend. It’ll be interesting to see how many more write-offs are coming and how many banks report lower earnings or even losses. I expect there will be many more.
Economics:
Retail sales in […]
Posted in Inflationary Policy, Portfolio by: arnie
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