Jerome Maurice By Peter C. Earle In February 2023, the AIER Business Conditions Monthly demonstrated divergent signals yet again. The Leading Indicator rose from 67 to 75 with the Roughly Coincident Indicator spending a fourth month at the 75 level. The Lagging Indicator, which dropped to 0 in December 2023 before rebounding to 50 in…
thitivong John’s portfolio hasn’t been as active as his spouse Jane’s (especially when you look at the trade history in the Roth IRA), and to be honest, that’s the way we prefer it because when you have a retiree that is at the point of drawing RMD’s certainty and consistency is the name of the…
JLGutierrez By William J. Luther When inflation picked back up in January 2024, many commentators described it as more noise than signal. The latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) casts doubt on that view. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCEPI), which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, grew at…
pcess609/iStock via Getty Images The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), has just released its estimate for February 2024 US Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE). Also known as “Personal Spending,” PCE directly accounts for over 60% of total US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), marking it a crucial indicator for assessing changing rates of expansion, contraction, and momentum…
Martin Barraud/OJO Images via Getty Images It happened again in February 2024. The size of the U.S. new home market as measured by its market capitalization shrank for the fifth month in a row. Political Calculations’ initial estimate of the size of the new home market cap in February 2024 is $26.38 billion. This estimate…
Torsten Asmus February represented a fantastic month for income generation, with growth of 15.52% for the month of February (compared to income generated February 2023). Income growth is looking strong, but I have some concerns as the DJIA, S&P500, and Nasdaq all continue to push record highs. When I see situations like this, I put…
da-kuk February saw forward progress in meeting my 2024 goals that I wrote about in my 2023 review. As a recap, there are a few things I’m working to achieve in 2024 as I reconfigure and clean up my portfolio while also continuing to have quality dividend growth and a diverse portfolio. 1. Maximize contributions…
Boy Wirat/iStock via Getty Images Core services CPI – 61% of total CPI and infamous for historic head fakes – is approaching 6% annualized six-month average. The “core services” CPI (services minus energy services) is crucial. The majority of consumer spending goes to core services, and Powell keeps talking about it. Core services include housing…
Pavel Muravev Due to be released on the morning of March 12, this February CPI report is expected to be another hot inflation reading, hotter than the one in January. This could be an essential reading because, as it stands, that would be two months of inflation readings hotter than what was seen at the…
courtneyk Earlier today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the February nonfarm payroll report. The report showed that the economy generated 275,000 jobs in the month of February, which was stronger than expected, but the unemployment rate rose to 3.9%. Part of the offset in the strong jobs report was the downward revisions of the…
SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images U.S. job growth didn’t quite fall back to earth after soaring past estimates in both December and January. But downward revisions for prior months suggest growth may not be as strong as initially advertised. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that employers added 275,000 jobs in February, above estimates of…
m63085 Continuing January’s trend, government bond markets experienced another sell-off in February. Yields on 10-year benchmark notes saw double-digit increases apart from those for Japan, which dropped by two basis points in the month prior to finish at 0.71%. The country’s inflation rate dropped to 2.2% in January, the lowest figure since March 2022, while…
The rally we noted last month continued in February, with the S&P up another ~5%. Are there any compelling investment ideas out there that may have flown under your radar? Below is a list of February Buy recommendations made by analysts who had no other bullish recommendations over the past 3 months. For your directory…
MicroStockHub This is what dividend investing is all about! Investing in dividend stocks allows you to earn dividend income, the best passive income stream! Bias, you better believe it. Time to dive into Lanny’s February 2024 dividend income results! Were records set? Love the end of the year Dividend Tally, as the retirement account is…
SlavkoSereda For March, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices should range between $70 and $90 per barrel. This is an increase of $5 per barrel from last month. A narrower range is between $75 and $85 per barrel. For most of last month, prices were tightly packed between the low and high $70s. As the…
Khanchit Khirisutchalual The Federal Reserve remains data-dependent, as the central bank’s Chairman, Jerome Powell, likes to say, and perhaps that’s especially true now as policymakers weigh the prospects for when (or if) to start cutting interest rates this year. Recent economic data has again raised doubts about the timing for the arrival of a dovish…
Yuichiro Chino/Moment via Getty Images The S&P 500 (SPY) blew off to new all-time highs this week, mirroring the projections outlined in last weekend’s article. Not only did the index “take a step back on Tuesday’s re-open and drop to test the 4950-60 area,” it then rebounded to the target area at “the cluster of…
simonkr Welcome to the February 2024 edition of the lithium miner news. The past month saw lithium prices generally flat. Lithium price news Asian Metal reported during the past 30 days, the China delivered lithium carbonate (99.5% min.) spot price was down 0.59% and the China lithium hydroxide (56.5% min.) price was down 2.18%. The…
Walmart will begin its second half century of dividend growth in late February. Alexander Farnsworth/iStock Editorial via Getty Images This is the latest in my series of articles where I provide predictions of annual dividend increases for long-term dividend growth companies. At the end of January, I provided predictions for 20 dividend growth companies that…
damedeeso Foreword About Large Cap Value A Value ranking for large-cap stocks from YCharts puts together complementary strategies found during their stock research. As a value ranking, it looks at the price of a stock relative to a number of measurements that determine intrinsic firm value. Only the largest 10% of companies based on market…
Olivier Le Moal In this series of articles, we focus on selecting and highlighting stocks that have rapidly grown their dividends in the recent past. We also need to ensure that these stocks will likely grow their earnings at a fast pace in the next few years. Due to their hypergrowth, their price generally grows…
FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images This monthly article series shows a dashboard with aggregate industry metrics in consumer staples. It is also a review of sector exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, like Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR® Fund ETF (XLP) and iShares Global Consumer Staples ETF (NYSEARCA:KXI), whose largest holdings are used to calculate these metrics….
yuriz Opener I’m an investor with a focus on company quality above all else. I prefer to invest in quality stocks at fair prices rather than opting for cheap, mediocre companies. However, I believe that the market is highly inefficient in the short term, especially when looking beyond big tech, and I’m willing to explore…
ValeryEgorov Step One: Wide-moat stocks with 5-star and 4-star ratings Historical evidence says that while quality alone is a poor indicator of outperformance when combined with a decent valuation filter, Morningstar’s moat rating proves to be more than useful. Based on the available data, stocks with a wide-moat rating that also fit into the 4-…
Pakin Songmor/Moment via Getty Images As we enter February 2024, REITs are still stuck in a vicious bear market. Their share prices are down 27% over the past two years, and that’s despite growing their rents by 5-10% since then: Data by YCharts As a result, valuations remain historically low with most REITs (VNQ) trading…
aquaArts studio/E+ via Getty Images Seeking Alpha analysts have been cautious about investing in Cantaloupe (NASDAQ:CTLP) because of its high P/E ratio. And I was initially skeptical when, after recommending Asbury Automotive (ABG) to readers in November in part because David Abrams owns such a large stake, one of my readers recommended I look into…
pcess609 This monthly article series reports sector metrics in the S&P 500 Index (SP500). It is also a top-down review of all funds tracking large cap indexes. Shortcut The next two paragraphs in italics describe the dashboard methodology. They are necessary for new readers to understand the metrics. If you are used to this series…
ismagilov The coming weeks will likely continue the correction of the trends that began last month. The markets recognize that the tightening cycle is over. However, they swung hard, pricing in aggressive easing by most of the G10 central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank. Official comments and some high-frequency economic…
With the United States lacking an extradition treaty with the UAE, Seattle Judge Richard Jones ordered that CZ must remain with the country for the time being before he determines where the crypto billionaire is a flight risk. Despite pleading guilty to all charges and paying a hefty bond to reassure the United States Department…
The Valkyrie CIO says that the SEC will ask for comments and possibly approve an ETF proposal this month after all issues are addressed. A Valkyrie Investments exec has hinted at a strong possibility for a spot Bitcoin ETF approval this month. According to Chief Investment Officer (CIO) Steven McClurg, the United States Securities and…