Archive for October, 2010
Morgan Stanley Predicts Weaker Dollar by Year’s End, Bouncing Back in 2011
The report on US third quarter GDP growth came in right on expectations at 2% this week. That’s better than second quarter growth which came in at 1.7%, and reversed the decline from first quarter growth of 3.7%. The dollar rose a bit on the news. A little later, however, an index of US consumer sentiment [...]
Digging Into Rare Earth Investments
If Google Trends are any indication, there’s been a surge of interest in rare earth elements lately. Why? Probably because people came to realize China provides 97% of the world’s supply and they might have the US “over a barrel.” Most articles about rare earths include the obligatory assertion that “rare earths aren’t that rare,” [...]
Streaming Quotes, Uncertainty, And The HFT Speed Limit
And now… a somewhat more philosophical perspective on the markets. Bo Peng says that the market price is an “illusion,” pointing out that while it’s tempting to view the market for a specific stock as a flow of continuous prices, that really isn’t the case at all – especially when high frequency trading algorithms are [...]
Dollar Volatility May Stick Around for a While
A possible announcement next week by the US Federal Reserve Bank that the Fed will undertake a second round of quantitative easing has strengthened or weakened the US dollar, depending on what else was happening on a given day. That volatility is not likely to change, especially if the Fed does indeed go ahead with [...]
Apple’s Enormous Pile of Cash: Following “Rosenman’s Law”?
In a recent ZeccoPulse post on Apple (AAPL), (also published on Seeking Alpha) I mentioned that the company’s latest earnings release showed $25.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents plus short-term marketable securities – about $28 per share. But Yet Another Steve left a comment: Actually you’ve left out the “long term marketable securities.” Since [...]
UK GDP Rises More Than Expected, Boosting Sterling
The British pound rose more than 1% on a stronger-than-expected gain in UK GDP for the third quarter. GDP rose 0.8% sequentially, double an expected rise of 0.4%. Compared with the third quarter of 2009, GDP rose 2.8%, also higher than the estimated 2.4%. Earlier, pressure on the pound came from expectations of another round [...]
40+ Sector ETFs With Decent Liquidity
In a ZeccoShare discussion on thinly traded ETFs, Bloominonion noted that although there are more than 1,000 ETFs, only a small fraction of those have an average volume of more than 100,000 shares per day. As Bloominonion points out: If you stick with 100K and greater average volume over 20 days or longer, you’ll be [...]
Currency War Averted, For the Time Being
The G20 meeting in South Korea may actually have achieved more than most people expected. Hopes weren’t particularly high for any substantive outcome, but what did happen is more than the usual “we-had-constructive-talks” communique. In something of a miracle, the US and China have agreed to “refrain from competitive devaluations of currencies,” according to The [...]
British Pound Falls on Weaker Retail Sales
It looks like British consumers are reining in their spending even before the conservative government’s austerity reforms kick in. Retail sales in Britain fell 0.2% in September compared to August sales. Year-over-year sales rose 0.5% in September. Economists were expecting sales in September to rise 0.7% month-over-month and 1.5% year-over-year. The British government has unveiled [...]
Apple Down, But Weekly Puts Plummet Anyway
The implied volatility for Apple (AAPL) options got the wind sucked out of them after the company released its earnings Monday night. A look at the prices as of the October 19 close shows how the weekly options (that expire October 22) behaved compared to some of the longer term expirations. The stock was down [...]
