Smaller business inventories and increased sales are good signs in a recession. Economic data released today show the first has already happened and the second appears to be happening. Consumer products and basic materials shares gained on the news, up +1.2% and +1.5%, respectively,… Read More
Results
There is no doubt that investors flock to gold as a safe haven hedge during times of political and/or economic distress and instability. And up until recently, the economic backdrop was about as bad as it could get. Furthermore, with the printing presses… Read More
A key measure of wholesale prices rose in June at nearly twice the increase economists had forecast. It was the sharpest rise for the index since November 2007. The Producer Price Index, which tracks how much it costs for manufacturers to make things,… Read More
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) earned a record $3.4 billion in the second quarter, setting a record and handily exceeding even the most optimistic forecasts. The results were +64.5% higher than a year ago, illustrating how quickly the investment bank has recovered from the… Read More
Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) opened its first store in India’s northwest Punjab region today. Wal-Mart plans to build 10 to 15 more stores during the next three years. The discount retailer operates 3,685 international stores in 15 countries. Local vendors called Wallahs control 97% of India’s retail trade. To protect their… Read More
Star banking analyst Meredith Whitney upgraded Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) from “neutral” to “buy,” saying she expects second-quarter earnings to be $4.65 per share compared with the average analyst estimate of $3.65. Goldman is scheduled to report earnings tomorrow before the market opens. Read More
When will the recovery come? Has it already begun? These are questions experts can answer only in hindsight. But just because no one knows exactly when the recovery will arrive doesn’t mean it’s not coming. It always has, so one can say with a fair degree of certainty that it… Read More
Recent hot spots are looking cold. What country will deliver the big gains we’ve seen in other international markets? To answer this question, we devised a proprietary system that considers each country’s GDP forecasts,… Read More
The American Bankers Association said consumer-credit delinquencies rose to 3.23% of all accounts in the first quarter of 2009. Delinquencies on bank-card accounts rose to 4.75%. The percentage of consumers at least 30 days late making a payment is the highest since the group began keeping records in 1974:… Read More
We’re 11 days past the July 1 deadline, and California still doesn’t have a budget in place. Democratic lawmakers and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger remain at loggerheads about a $26 billion budget shortfall. Schwarzenegger says he won’t accept any more taxes. Without a budget, the state can’t spend money. Without… Read More