Bloomberg reports that Barrick Gold (ABX: 43.98 -0.36 -0.81%) boss Peter Munk sees a “frightening trend” in gold …
Munk, founder of Toronto-based Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer, said he has received an increasing number of calls from wealthy investors looking for ways to buy bullion. While that is positive for the metal market, it is [...]
From the monthly archives:
January 2009
The Treasury bond market continues to collapse under its own weight. The long bond futures are down ANOTHER 28/32 as I write, extending recent losses to around 15 points in price. In fact, this month is shaping up to be the worst month for the Treasury market going all the way back to April 2004, [...]
Just a quick note: I’m scheduled to do a segment on CNBC at 3:40 p.m. Eastern this afternoon. I’ll be discussing the latest housing figures. Check it out if you get a chance.
Chart of the ever-lovin’ day …
This chart is just the beginning of the new report I just sent to my Red-Hot Global Small-Caps subscribers, “3 Red-Hot Picks From Vancouver.” If you’re a subscriber, look in your in-box. If you’re not a subscriber, you can change that pretty quickly and act on these three recommendations immediately: click [...]
The latest economic news continues to disappoint, which shouldn’t come as any surprise. Durable goods orders for December dropped 2.6%, worse than expectations for a decline of 2%. Excluding transportation orders, durables were down 3.6% against a -2.7% forecast.
On the employment front, initial jobless claims rose to 588,000 from a revised 585,000 (forecast was for [...]
The Federal Reserve just released its latest statement. The message in a nutshell: Rates will stay low for a long time and we’ll buy anything and everything to keep credit costs low:
“The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to keep its target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent. The Committee [...]
The banking stocks recently suffered another mini-crash. So it’s no surprise Washington is responding with yet another “solution” to the crisis. Every few months, this happens. Some bank, broker, or subsector of the credit market blows up … policymakers try to think up a solution … that solution gets leaked to the press ahead of [...]
The demand for oil in China declined by 4% in December. That is the steepest monthly demand decline in the last 10 years and second monthly demand decline in a row.
McDonald’s (MCD: 63.97 +0.56 +0.88%), a company I’ve mentioned in Money and Markets, also posted its results yesterday. Quarterly profits beat analysts’ estimates. Moreover, December same-store sales rose 5.8% around the world.
The company did note that some international locations are starting to feel the effects of the global slowdown - including Germany and China.
The lesson [...]
The latest figures from S&P/Case-Shiller have just been released. The research group says home prices dropped 2.23% between October and November in 20 top U.S. metropolitan areas. That was a slight increase from the 2.18% drop a month earlier.
On a year-over-year basis, prices fell 18.2% in November, compared with an 18.1% decline in October. The [...]
