Notes You Need for February 6: VIX, Bunge, rig count, Alphabet, ISM Services stronger

Notes You Need for February 6: VIX, Bunge, rig count, Alphabet, ISM Services stronger

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 representative post resembles this entry from today: “10:40 a.m.: Earlier rumors have advanced to reports of talks between Archer-Daniels-Midland and Bunge (BG) about an acquisition of the latter company. Bloomberg is reporting that the deal could be agreed as early as this week. Soybean giant Bunge is a member of my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio. The shares are up 4.33% today.”

Yesterday’s slump in the NASDAQ: Is the market worried about earnings from Facebook and Amazon?

Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the week ahead expect…

So much news. And so much that has the potential to move the financial markets. Let’s start on the economic side, ok? Monday we get reports on personal income and inflation. And on the earnings side? Lots and lots of reports that could change the tone of this market. The biggest are Microsoft, (MSFT), PayPal (PYPL) and Facebook (FB) on Wednesday January 31 and then Alphabet (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) on Thursday, February 1.

The digital assistant wars heat up at the Consumer Electronics Show

The digital assistant wars heat up at the Consumer Electronics Show

For the first time in years Alphabet (AKA Google) will have a booth at the biggest U.S. showplace for new consumer electronics, the Consumer Electronics Show that runs from January 7 through January 12 in Las Vegas. The goal this time won’t be urging early adopting consumers to try the latest Google gadget. The point this year is to get developers at other companies to join the Google Assistant camp instead of teaming up to work with Amazon’s (AMZN) Alexa or Apple’s (AAPL) Siri or voice assistants from Roku or LG or Samsung or Baidu (BIDU) or …

Notes You Need for February 6: VIX, Bunge, rig count, Alphabet, ISM Services stronger

Notes You Need for January 4: Uber, Didi Chuxing, initial claims, INTC, AMD, Amazon, RAD, Google,

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 post resembles this from today: “2:40 p.m.: Technology analysts are expecting Alphabet (GOOG) to make a big splash at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The likelihood is that Alphabet will promote Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL phones, the Google Home Mini smart speaker, and the new Daydream View VR headset. New Chromebooks to follow up on the PixelBook are also a strong possibility.”

Trick or Trend: Where’s the volatility? Try the bond market

Trick or Trend: Where’s the volatility? Try the bond market

Last week’s drop has again led to the question “So where’s the volatility?” After all it’s not like there aren’t dangers in this world that might lead a trader to bid up the price of protecting against those dangers. It’s certainly not in the VIX, which looks for volatility in the S&P 500 future. But there’s actually plenty out there. It’s just all in the Treasury futures market where traders are hedging their bets on 10-year and 30-year Treasuries big time. The implied volatility in those futures markets has soared in the last couple of weeks.

Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the next week expect…

Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the next week expect…

A very heavy week for earnings will reach a crescendo on Thursday, November 2 with reports from Alibaba and Apple. The excitement isn’t surprising after the huge earnings that Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), and Intel (INTC) delivered this past Thursday, October 26. This week Facebook (FB) is the Wednesday, November 1,  warmup act.

Sector Monday: The hot technology behind Bitcoin

Wall Street–and especially JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon–may hate the crypto currency bitcoin. Dimon has promised to stop talking about bitcoin but he just can’t seem to help himself. Bitcoin is a “fraud” and people who buy Bitcoin are “stupid.” But that isn’t stopping Wall Street and big tech giants rom buying whole companies working on blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin