Drill baby, drill pledge sends oil prices down today
Oil slid as U..S President Donald Trump promised to boost U.S. crude production. Brent crude retreated almost 1% to near $80 a barrel.
SQM
Jobs surprise–economy delivers stronger than expected performance in December
In December U.S. economy in December added the most jobs since March and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell. Nonfarm payrolls increased 256,000, exceeding all but one forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1%, while average hourly earnings rose 0.3% from November, a Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed Friday. For 2024 as a whole, the economy added 2.2 million jobs—-below the 3 million increase in 2023 but above the 2 million created in 2019. The data almost certainly assured that the Federal Reserve would not cut interest rates at its January 29 meeting. As of 11 a.m. New York time, the yield on the 10-year Treasury had climbed another 5 basis points to 4.74%.
China’s deflation problem got worse in December
China’s consumer price index rose 0.1% in December from a year earlier, in line with the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Factory deflation extended into a 27th month, though the producer price index recorded a slower drop of 2.3%, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday. For the full year, consumer prices only inched up 0.2% from 2023, well short of the 1.1% gain economists had predicted at the beginning of 2024.
Fed’s December minutes another nail in the coffin for early interest rate cuts
In minutes from the Federal Reserve’s December 17-18 meeting released on Wednesday, January 8, Federal Reserve officials clearly decided to move more slowly on cutting interest rates in the quarters ahead. “Participants indicated that the committee was at or near the point at which it would be appropriate to slow the pace of policy easing,” minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee showed. “Many participants suggested that a variety of factors underlined the need for a careful approach to monetary policy decisions over coming quarters.” Please note the reference to “quarters” and not “months.”
More bad news for stocks from the bond market today
The 20-year Treasury bond, a laggard on the government debt curve since its re-introduction in 2020, topped 5% Wednesday for the first time since 2023. The move looks to be fueled by concern that President-elect Donald Trump’s policies on tariffs and tax cuts will lead to wider deficits and rekindle inflation.
Stocks fall as they begin to price in no rate cut until July
The Institute for Supply Management’s index of services advanced 2 points to 54.1 last month. That show of strength in the economy–readings above 50 indicate expansion–was enough to push stocks lower as the markets began to price in a delay in the next interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve until July The measure of prices paid for materials and services rose more than 6 points to 64.4, suggesting that the drop in the inflation rate in the service sector–about 70% of the U.S. economy–might be over.
Lithium stocks bounce back as market downgrades Tesla threat
On Wednesday, September 23, shares of Albemarle (ALB) and SQM (SQM), the two dominant lithium producers in the world, fell 11.56% and 11.82%, respectively, on an announcement at Tesla's (TSLA) Battery Day that the electric car maker would start its own lithium mining...
Albemarle, other lithium stocks, ride Tesla’s draft
Shares of electric car maker Tesla (TSLA) were up another 21.6% as of 3:15 p.m. New York time to another all-time high. And shares of lithium miners, who produce the stuff that goes into Tesla batteries, rode the draft higher with Albemarle (ALB) picking up 12.27% and...
First three bargain stock picks for my Special Report
In my set up to this Special Report: 12 Bargain Stocks NOW I laid out the reasons for adding some bargain stocks to a portfolio. (You can find that set up in my Special Report in the Special Reports pane on the home page of JubakAM.com. I'll add these picks to that...
Materials stocks up today even as U.S.-China trade fears linger
I think the strong move in commodities stocks today has more to do with continued weakness in the U.S. dollar than it does with any renewed faith in growth in the global economy. After all the U.S.-China trade war doesn't look any more settled today than it did last...
Notes You Need for January 29: AAPL, MCD, savings rate, SQM, TSLA, PYPL, EU trade war,
In my daily trawling through the market I come upon lots of tidbits of knowledge that I think are important to investors but that don’t justify a full post. I’ve decided to start compiling these notes here each day in a kind of running mini blog that I’m calling Notes You Need. A typical entry would resemble this from today: “10:20 a.m.: Apple (AAPL) shares down 2% this morning on news reports out of Japan that the company will lower iPhone X production volume by 50% in the first quarter of calendar 2018. The stories see that Apple has notified suppliers that it will cut production for January-March quarter to 20 million units for the iPhone X instead of the 40 million units projected at the phone’s November release. Apple reports earnings after the market close on Wednesday, February 1.”
Turmoil isn’t done in lithium sector with volatility at SQM and ALB
The announcement of a deal between Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM) and Chile's development agency CORFO that resolves a long-standing dispute on royalty rates and that would allow SQM to expand lithium production from the brines at government-owned Salar de...Jim’s Stock Alerts
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