Morning Briefing
Confusion about state of trade talks with China takes a bit of froth off stocks
So are talks going well, as U.S. officials including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are claiming? Mnuchin has sad that a deal could be announced within the next two week. Or have talks hit an impasse as such official Chinese government media outlets as The Global...
Has President Trump talked himself into a box with his Fed criticism?
The Federal Reserve speaks today at 2 p.m. on inflation, interest rates, and the economy. Ahead of our efforts to parse the prose, it's worth taking a minute to think about the likelihood that President Donald Trump's very public criticism of the Fed has molded the...Another analyst capitulates to “fear of being left out”
If this market runs out of bears, I think it's in trouble. And today one of the market's few remaining bears capitulated to the rally. Wells Fargo’s head of equity strategy Christopher Harvey hiked his year-end price target for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to...
More of the same in today’s economic data: low inflation, good growth in consumer spending, but lagging incomes
Put today's numbers on the economy together with those in Friday's first quarter GDP report and the picture that emerges is of a U.S. economy growing at s very solid rate with declining inflation. But where the trends on consumer incomes and spending suggest, maybe,...
GDP growth surprises at 3.2% in first quarter; economists question sustainability
The U.S. economy grew at a 3.2% real rate in the first quarter. That's substantially stronger than the 2.2% growth in the fourth quarter and way above projections for 1.9% growth among economists surveyed by Briefing.com. Inflation remained very subdued with the GDP...
Renewed bid from Occidental for Anadarko adds heat to Permian M&A
The battle for control of Anadarko Petroleum (APC) and its huge position in the oil shale geologies of the Permian Basis isn't over. Yesterday, Wednesday,  Occidential Petroleum (OXY) made a renewed bid to acquire Anadarko. The 50%/50% stock and cash offer from...
Politburo throws some cold water on Chinese stocks
On Friday China's ruling body, the Politburo, suggested that it thought less stimulus might be needed since the economy had recovered its footing. Instead policy should focus on deleveraging China's banks and corporate balance sheets, and on avoiding speculation in...
Trump administration ends Iran oil waivers scrambling oil markets
The Trump administration has announced that it will not renew waivers that have let some countries buy Iranian oil without facing U.S. sanctions. The waivers are set to expire on May 2. In March the countries that loaded the most oil from Iran were China (613,000...
U.S. oil rig count falls again, leading to slight gain for oil prices
Today the weekly Baker Hughes report on the number of working oil and natural gas rigs in the United States showed a total drop of 10 rigs to 1012 with 8 fewer oil rigs in operation and 2 fewer natural gas rigs.This is the seventh weekly decline in working rigs in the last nine weeks.Â
Official figures show improvement in China’s economy in March
China’s economy expanded at 6.4% year over year. That beat the 6.3% expected by economists surveyed by Briefing.com. That projected 6.3% growth itself marked a step up in optimism about China’s economy.
More signs of slower growth in industrial production, cardboard shipments, truck load volume
This morning an unexpected decline in U.S. industrial production (for March) led the parade of indicators pointing to a slowing economy. Industrial production in March fell 0.1%. This comes after a 0.1% increase in February. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had...Jim’s Stock Alerts
Download Jim’s eBook for Free
