December 29, 2017 | Daily JAM, Notes You Need |
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. Typical items resemble this post from today: “10:40 a.m.: Softbank Group along with Tencent Holdings, Sequoia Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group are buying existing shares in Uber from current shareholders. In addition Softbank will buy $1.25 billion in new preferred stock. The big advantage to the deal from Uber’s point of view is that the investment pretty much rules out any investment in rival Lyft from Softbank. Locking Lyft out of funding from Softbank came at a price, though, as the sale of existing shares values Uber at $48 billion, a haircut from the valuation of $69 billion in Uber’s last round of financing.”
December 28, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
One expected and one surprising development as everybody digs deeper into the recently passed tax bill. The expected: Congress gave the IRS no time at all between passing the bill and the deadlines for putting its provisions to work. So it’s not at all surprising that there’s lots of confusion about how the new law will work. Take the question of whether tax payers in high tax states, who stand to get slammed next year can prepay their state and local taxe
December 26, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The week in the markets will be dominated by something old and something new. The something old is trading. The relatively light volumes during the week between Christmas and News Year’s bring out the dedicated traders who see the low volumes as creating the potential for moving the market in one direction or another. Today the action has centered on Bitcoin.The something new is parsing the recently passed tax bill.
December 20, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Prices on U.S. Treasuries fell and yields rose for a fifth straight day. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury rose 3 basis points to 2.50%. In the last month the yield on the 10-year Treasury has climbed 13 basis points. The yield on the two-year Treasury is up 11 basis points in the same period.
December 15, 2017 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Just about everything is up today on news that Senator Marco Rubio has changed a possible “No” from Thursday into a “Yes” vote today. The tax cut bill now looks extremely likely to move out of conference committee and to pass the Senate–the major obstacle–and wind up on President Trump desk for his signature before Christmas..
November 15, 2017 | Daily JAM, Notes You Need |
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. Items in this miniblog include posts like this today: “CNBC discusses comments from analysts who are speculating that Apple (AAPL) might introduce video streaming service to compete with Netflix (NFLX). Apple opened lower this morning to close last week’s bullish gap along the 168.50 area.”
November 12, 2017 | Daily JAM, Friday Trick or Trend |
The House version of the tax cut legislation is headed for a planned vote in the full House of Representatives this week. The Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to begin consideration of its version of a tax cut bill on Monday. Republican leaders in the Senate say they want to hold a vote in the full Senate before Thanksgiving, which falls on November 23 this year. The problem–and it’s just a teeny, tiny one–is that the two bills aren’t compatible.
November 4, 2017 | Daily JAM, Friday Trick or Trend, Short Term |
We certainly won’t know what’s actually in the tax bill when the House of Representatives begins markup of the legislation on Monday. It’s not even clear if members of the House will know what’s in the bill. And there’s no chance that the bill as written in the House will be the bill that comes up for a vote in the Senate. But, to be cynical and I think realistic, none of this matters as far as the financial markets are concerned. For stocks and bonds this is a binary decision: Either the tax bill passes with the cut in corporate rates from 35% to 20% intact. Or the bill doesn’t pass.Â
