Posted on 03/08/2015 10:12:24 AM PDT by expat_panama
Top 'o the marnin' to all! After yesterday's solid gains w/ stocks and steady basing in metals we're now looking at solid gains w/ metals and steady basing in stocks (futures +0.3% metals & -0.07% stocks). The end'o'week report flood's easing back w/ just PPI, Core PPI, and Mich Sentiment. No worries --what could possibly happen on Friday the Thirteenth?
News-
U.S. 2015 profits forecast to grow 1.7 percent; oil, dollar are concerns Corporate America's profit engine may be running out of steam. Wall Street analysts, expecting two quarters of declining earnings, are banking on a second-half recovery to keep 2015 from becoming the worst year for profits since the last recession.
Asia stocks mostly gain as weak US retail sales undermine rate hike expectations Fox Business - 6 hours ago FILE - In this Monday, Aug. 8, 2011 file photo, a pedestrian walks past the New York Stock Exchange in New York. Financial stocks are leading an early gain in U.S.
Go Ahead, It's Perfectly OK to Bash the Fed - Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg
What Does the Fed Mean? Be 'Patient' - James B. Stewart, New York Times
-- threads:
Seems like everyone's tootin' that tune! It's all over the news wires like fleas on on a pooch but the dirty secret is it's bogus. We were going over it on a related thread and the story is that the reasons the "total wealth of American families" is at an all time high is both inflation and the fact that the number of U.S. families is at an all time high. Divide the total net worth by the number of Americans, adjust for inflation and you find that --
--for the past 8 years Americans are worse off. They worked all those years, they not only have nothing to show for those years of work but they're worse off.
There’s another reason total net worth is not impressive. It’s been established that wealth has concentrated upward. It’s entirely plausible that the top 15% (or so) of households have gotten wealthier, while the bottom tier of the economy (and it’s a very big tier) is close to 0% net worth, with no options to improve their situation.
Net worth is pretty variable anyway. Houses, cars even stocks are worth what you actually sell them for, not whatever some index says they are worth.
--and we wouldn't want it any other way. 100% of America gets sick once in a while, but only 0.08% of Americans are doctors who get paid to heal the sick. Everyone listens to music song by a tiny fraction of the population. Most employees like to work 40 hours but there are a few who prefer to work 80 hours (while most of America doesn't work at all).
The fact that so few make so much is the way it should be.
--and when you sell your house you can't use it. Net worth is important to know about for managing wealth but it does not seriously mean that (as I incorrectly stated above) folks are somehow better or worse off.
A lesson many never learn!
That just ain't so. There is nowhere on Planet Earth where opportunity to better oneself is greater than in the U. S. A. It's been proved time and again. It's always amazed me how successful people who work hard, discipline themselves, and act morally, are said to be "lucky." Luck had nothing to do with it.
It’s getting very, very difficult for people to pull themselves up. Granted, the most resourceful and motivated will do so. That doesn’t change the statistic. The vast majority of those mired in the bottom 40% (or so) of the population are finding their options narrowing. What’s needed is incentive to local small businesses and self-employment so people with ambition and skills can succeed. Now, all the taxes, rules, and regulations make that near-impossible.
EURUSD <1.05
With the dollar on an absolute rampage, I ask again: does the Fed need to tighten or is the market effectively doing that already?
How the mighty have fallen...
Hold it! The Fed has nothing to do w/ exchange rates. The Fed is concerned with inflation. Inflation and exchange rates are unrelated, they have virtually nothing to do with each other.
Sure is providing another opportunity to buy oil stocks at a better price.
Directly that is true. But if the dollar is strengthening it could cause (or be caused by) greater demand for dollars which is related to in/de-flation.tighten in a time of great demand for dollars and you cause deflation or at best disinflation.
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