- - Page 3 of 14 The Finance Gourmet

Unemployment Rises Less Than Expected

December 8, 2021December 2, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Ah, the world of finance, where the rules are made up, and the points don’t matter. OK, I stole that from Phineas and Ferb, but sometimes it fits better than it does even for a fake game show. Today, unemployment numbers were released in which the number of Americans filing for unemployment increased. That means more Americans are jobless than before, despite the so-called worker shortage and the Great Resignation. Don’t forget, you don’t get to file for unemployment when you quit, so these are still Americans who were fired, downsized, let go, or their employer closed. More unemployed Americans is bad, in general, but… Economists were predicting (modeling, similar to what meteorologists do) that there would be even more Americans filing for unemployment, so the fact that more Americans are unemployed, but not as bad as we thought, is good news. Kind of. Check out my review of the new fintech investing apps. The reality is that numerous traders and investors made their trades expecting higher unemployment numbers would push down the price of securities and investments. Since they were wrong, the price of those investments are rebounding. This is “good news” in the world of finance, and a …

Upcoming Correction or Stock Market Crash

September 20, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Here it comes. No, not the stock market crash. No, not a stock market correction, either. OK. Well, maybe those things are coming. But, what most definitely IS coming are the analysts’ notes, financial stories, and money website articles about a possible 10% correction, or even 20% crash. How To Get Credit For Predicting The Crash You’ve seen the ads a hundred times on the internet. “He predicted the real estate crash, now he recommends this one company!” So, how do you get credit for calling a stock market correction or stock market crash, anyway? The sad reality is that it doesn’t take much. As long as you have some sort of statement, article, analysis, or investor note floating around out there mentioning a crash or correction when one actually happens, you (and your PR department) simply rush out to take credit. Whether the financial media decides to buy it depends a bit on how long ago your “prediction” happened, and how accurate it was. But, as I’ve tried to point out time and again here on Finance Gourmet and other places I do financial writing for, these predictions aren’t always what they are cracked up to be. Often, the …

Procter & Gamble Stock Investment

August 8, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Procter & Gamble, known mostly as PG, announced their new CEO and predicted solid earnings ahead even though most of the commodities used to make its wide variety of products are increasing in price. PG currently trades around $140 per share, which is the top of its V-shaped chart from the last 12 months. At this price PG offers a 2.46% annual dividend. This is way more than any of your bank accounts, and comes from a stock that really isn’t going anywhere, up or down, fast. Here is the best part. “Activist shareholder” Nelson Peltz is stepping down from the PG board after the company was able to refuse his proposals to break up the company and move its headquarters in a bid to make more money for himself and other short-term shareholders, without regard to the company’s future, or long-term shareholders. Although Peltz never prevailed on any of his major proposals, the fact that he is stepping down indicates that he is done trying to leverage his “large” position of stock into moves that might not be in the best long-term interests of the company. In all of this commotion, the company also named a new CEO. Jon …

Baker Hughes Stock Buyback from GE

July 30, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

So, weird little bit of financial news today. There are a couple of moving parts, so let’s get those out of the way first. Last summer in July 2020, GE announced that intended to “fully monetized” its stake in Baker Hughes over the next three years. Fully monetize is lingo for sell. Earlier this year, GE said it sold $1 billion worth of Baker Hughes during the second quarter. GE also announced that it planned to sell another $1.3 billion worth of BKR during the third quarter. That brings us up to date. Baker Hughes announces a $2 billion stock repurchase program In part, the idea behind the share buyback is that Baker Hughes is using some of the profits it has reaped recently thanks to a recovering economy and a carefully controlled quota by OPEC. Buying $2 billion worth of stock would essentially soak up the $2 billion that GE is selling right now. In a world where supply and demand are the only factors that impact a stock’s price, GE’s selling would be pushing the price of BKR down. You can kind of see that in the April to May dip in BKR. Assuming that BKR sold its …

Stocks Rise on Inauguration Day

January 20, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

Stocks are racing higher here on Inauguration Day. The question, as always, for us non-day traders is whether or not the day’s news and the stock market’s reaction to it is worthy of our time and attention. Why Are Is The Stock Market Higher on Inauguration Day Does the stock market just love Joe Biden? Not really. However, the stock market does love two things about today. One, is that there wasn’t any sort of violence or disturbance that would signal danger to the forthcoming economy. The second, is that with control of all three branches, Democrats are likely to enact at least some form of additional stimulus, which will help prop up the economy, and more importantly, stave off the reckoning of a possible recession. Washington Can Finally Help the Fed Prop Up The Economy As the Federal Reserve Chairman has been saying to anyone that will listen, the economy is actually on very weak footing right now. Sure, the stock market has been rising. However, the market’s optimism has largely been fueled by the idea that an America on its knees from the unchecked spread of Covid-19 has nowhere to go but up. Behind the scenes, however, is …

5 Keys to 2021 Stock Market Predictions

January 7, 2021January 7, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

The 2021 stock market predictions will start flowing from the pens of the financial media as the end of 2020 fades into the background. There can be no question that stocks are pricing in a very happy new year. Does that make it a bubble? I think the better question is to understand what is holding up the market. The following tenants are why this market keeps going higher. If any one of them falls apart, then the market gets on shakier ground, and investors will start looking for an exit, whether in a nice, methodical path, or a bubble-bursting flee for the exits based upon how quickly the pillars crumble. What’s Holding Up The Stock Market? 5 Keys to Stock Market Predictions Low Interest Rates – The irony is that the economy is very shaky, and everyone including the Fed knows it, that’s why interest rates are at zero. These low rates are a key to propping up the market. Coronavirus Improvement – Look, the U.S. can’t do any worse with Covid than it did in 2020. Between the federal government just ignoring the whole thing, and the states opening and closing randomly, the U.S. Covid response was about …

Jeremy Grantham Calls “Epic Bubble”

January 6, 2021 by Finance Gourmet

One of my favorite themes here on Finance Gourmet is accountability. Accountability for your financial advisor, accountability for talking heads on money TV, accountability for analysts making “calls” about the market. Too often, all of these predictions and calls are simply forgotten until one of them is “right” and then, they won’t shut up about it. I try, in my huge amounts of spare time (Hah!) to bring a little bit of accountability to the big names and headlines that fly by. Today, it’s Jeremy Grantham. Epic Bubble Every article with the name Jeremy Grantham in it makes sure to “credit” him with predicting the housing bubble of 2007. Some also credit him with predicting the dot-com bubble of 2009. That’s pretty cool, but it is now 2021. Wondering about the TurboTax card? What has he predicted in the last 11 years? Have any of those predictions been good … or bad? Never mind that, the finance press says. He predicted those two things over a decade ago and now he says, “Epic bubble!” Print it! Jeremy Grantham Track Record First off, let’s give Mr. Grantham some credit. In January 2018, he predicted a “melt-up” in the stock market. He …

7 Important Things To Look For From the December Stock Market

December 1, 2020 by Finance Gourmet

Here we go. December 1, 2020 is a Tuesday, so the markets already got started on this week yesterday. This December is packed with interesting scenarios, events, and reports for investors. Without further ado, let’s jump into the 7 most important things to look for from the December stock market. Tesla Joins the S&P 500 Over a long enough period, the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) at the SP500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average drives some interesting decisions. Some of them prove to be remarkably prescient, others embarrassingly reversed. There is no denying that Tesla dominates news storylines in the automotive industry. Its market capitalization certainly qualifies for inclusion in the central S&P 500 index. On the other hand, Tesla stock is highly volatile, often tied to words its CEO blurts out on Twitter, or based on meeting tight-rope high production goals. More commonly missing those goals but getting credit for being kind of close. What is Rakuten? Joining the S&P 500 will give Tesla stock a new stability that comes from being part of all those market index mutual funds and market index ETFs. At the same time, the company may inject a bit of volatility back into …

7 Deeply Out of Favor Stocks?

November 5, 2020 by Finance Gourmet

Marketwatch is a finance website that survives by cranking out hundreds of articles per day. There isn’t hundreds of articles per day worth of actual financial news out there each day, so there is a bit of filler. Sometimes, I scroll right by. Sometimes, I wonder if a particular bit of financial analysis is legit. Analyzing Financial News Articles Check the person’s track record first Once you’ve been in the financial writing business for a while, you develop some contacts that you can go to for quotes and looks at finances and the stock market. If you have a big enough platform, financial gurus and analysts will come to you for some publicity. All you have to do is fill in the words around their quotes and fire up some graphs. Ironically, what is NOT part of the job is seeing how and when a particular analysts has fared in the past with their predictions. Accountability is not part of the finance writing world. A smart investor starts by seeing what, if anything the finance person has said in the past, and how right, or wrong they were, beyond the flattering, “He picked the last run up in technology stocks!” …

ANOTHER Stock Market Correction?

September 21, 2020 by Finance Gourmet

Monday’s trading left the S&P 500 down a big chunk, and closing in on another stock market correction for the year. As we’ve talked about before, the stock market this year is very volatile moving up and down in big moves as investors, and their computer programs, make trades based upon how they think the economy will play out among the coronavirus issue. The most recent trend has been down. A Stock Market Correction The definition of a stock market correction is a decline of 10%. The catch these days is that the stock market peaks are often the result of a fast runup in the markets. As a result, the first three or four percent of any correction is nothing more than taking the top off of a potentially unwarranted wave that rose too fast. Check out my Acorns review So, here in we are in September facing down another correction for the market during 2019. As I write this, the stock market isn’t quite down enough to count as a recession, but it may very well get there later today, or even tomorrow. It is also possible the computer algorithms get tripped and start buying. Either way, the …