21 Friday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
19 Wednesday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
Daily Market Update
Oil ended the day at a six year low due to a surprise increase in United States crude stockpiles. The Energy Information Administration announced that crude supplies rose 2.62 million barrels last week compared to analyst estimates of a 820,000 barrel decline.
Greece will receive the first installment in its new bailout package of 13 billion euros on Thursday as well as 10 billion euros set aside for the banks. The deal was finalized Wednesday as lawmakers in Germany and the Netherlands gave their approval. For more information click here
The Federal Reserve meeting minutes showed that the Fed believes it is not time to raise rates. The minutes said that the Fed would like to see greater improvement in the jobs market before they increase rates but that the job market is almost ready. For more information click here
18 Tuesday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
As soon as next week Iran plans to sign a contract with Russia for four S-300 Surface-to-air systems. In the emerging cold war between the West on one side and Russia and China on the other; this sale is clearly an attempt by Russia to gain a political ally in the Middle East as Iran continues to gain a dominate political foothold in the region.
In a test vote by German Chancellor Merkel results showed a majority in favor of the current bailout proposal.
In a move certainly to irritate Saudi Arabia a collation of Arab religious leaders have called on oil rich Arab countries to stop oil production and to move 100% to renewable energy by 2050. The declaration has already received support from the Grand Muftis of Uganda and Lebanon. Along side the recent G-7 declaration this is further proof of the coming end of oil dominance in favor of renewable energy.
14 Friday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
Tags
The United States will allow 100,000 barrels a day of light oil that is drilled in the United States to be exchanged for heavy crude from Mexico. This is a major shift in United States policy as previously only Canada was allowed to export oil from the United States. The shift is certainty because of the oil drilling boom in the United States and because of the low prices that oil is now demanding. For more information click here
According to research that Volkswagen has been attempting to keep hidden through court fillings for the past two years the Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) transponder chip has had a security flaw that allows hackers to access the cars. The hack has been found to be responsible for 42% of all stolen vehicles in London. This flaw was known since 2012 but before it could come to light Volkswagen sued to keep the research from the public. For more information click here
The United States reopened its Cuban Embassy after over 54 years of its closer during the cold war. This symbolizes the reinstatement of diplomatic ties between the two countries as President Obama’s administration calls for the lifting of the embargo, something Republicans have blocked. For more information click here
12 Wednesday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
Two blasts rocked the Chinese port of Tianjin on Wednesday as over 300 people were injured and at least 17 people were killed including four firefighters. The first blast was approximately three tons of TNT while the second was approximately 21 tons of TNT.
Source: The BBC
The Chinese State controlled broadcaster China Central Television announced that a shipment of explosives had detonated. However, like all news that comes out of China this cannot be independently verified. The truth is we will most likely never know what happened on Wednesday. For more information click here
For the rest of today’s earlier news click here
11 Tuesday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
The Dow is currently down approximately 218 points as Wall Street attempts to understand the move by China yesterday to devalue the yuan against the dollar. The move by the People’s Bank of China is thought to be in response to China’s abysmal July export number. This move by China clearly shows just how worried China’s ruling elite are about China’s economy.
At one point today oil was down below $43 in a move not see since March. The downward progression made by oil today was in response to concerns about weaker demand from China and an increase in production from Iran. For a more detailed analysis click here
The GOP House leader said in an interview in Jerusalem that there is a chance for a President Obama veto override as the debate regarding the Iran Nuclear deal continues to heat up. Congress is almost certainly not going to pass the deal and with President Obama saying he will veto any resistance from Congress the GOP has been trying to get enough support to override a veto.
While Greece has a deal negotiated with European Union heads of state, the deal still has to be ratified by Greece’s parliament in which the Syriza party, who oppose austerity, currently hold a majority. Due to this fact I am not confident that the deal will indeed pass through parliament. For a more detailed analysis click here
11 Tuesday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
Tags
China, Gold, Oil, Q2, Second Quarter
Google announced on Monday that they were forming a parent company called Alphabet. Don’t worry this is not a splitting of the company Google, but rather a more streamlined consolidation of the company as a whole. As we have seen recently Google has become more of a Berkshire Hathaway than just a search engine as they have dabbled in everything from cars to extending life indefinitely. But what does this mean for investors? In truth not much in the short-term; investors who currently own Google will just have their shares transformed into Alphabet stock and will keep their current number of shares. However, in the long run we can look forward a company that is more focused as the parent company structure allows each department to coexist separately rather than a jumbled mess.
For a more detailed analysis from Jim Cramer click here
Shake Shack released its Q2 2015 earnings on Monday and destroyed Wall Streets estimates of 3 cents per share on $43 million in revenue with $48.5 million in revenue on 9 cents per share. The stock, in after hours trading, is up 7.73%.
The PBOC set Tuesday’s Midpoint at 6.2298 per U.S. dollar which is a decrease of approximately 2% from Monday. For a more detailed account click here
Gold reached as high as $1,108.80 on Monday the highest price since July 21, 2015. This was due to a less than expected jobs number released last week.
Oil ended the trading day Monday up 2.48% at $44.96. This was due to an outage at a refinery in Whiting, Indiana due to a malfunction on Saturday. However, the rally was short-lived as oil is now down 0.80% at $44.60. The rally on Monday should not cause anybody to think that oil has hit the bottom. Always remember to look at the bigger picture; in this case Saudi Arabia, Iran, and United States’ drillers. Oil has not reached its bottom and I would not care to guess where that is until we receive accurate and definitive numbers out of Iran.
After the 2011 Fukushima disaster all of Japan’s nuclear plants were shutdown for safety inspections and evaluations. Since the plants were shutdown Japan began to rely on the importation of fossil fuels to power the country. Even though over $100 million has been spent on fitting new safety equipment to the reactor there are still large protests over the restart of the power plants as Japan is in an earthquake prone area.
Australia has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. As more countries pledge less reliance on fossil fuels is this the end of oil dominance? I think so. For more information please click here
10 Monday Aug 2015
Posted in Commentary
Tags
There are a number of earnings reports coming out this week and with oil ending today below $45 I decided to discuss the potential impact of the price of oil on some of the companies releasing their Q2 2015 reports.
Recently the price of oil has crashed with a 52-week high of $93.34 to a 52-week low of $43.35; oil has dropped 22.70% in 2015 alone. This has caused some obvious losers like oil and natural gas exploration companies but what about the not so obvious winners? In Q1 2015 the average price of WTI crude was $48.54 this helped companies like Air Canada post record breaking profits.
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| Statista |
One of the driving forces behind their outstanding quarter was the drop in the price of oil. In Q1 2014 the cost of aircraft fuel was approximately 25% of total operating expenses of CAD$3.127 billion. In Q1 2015 the cost of aircraft fuel was approximately 19% of total operating expenses of CAD$3.049 billion.
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| Q1 2015 is in gray Q1 2014 is in white (dollar amounts in Canadian Dollars) |
08 Saturday Aug 2015
Posted in Daily News Breakdown
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| http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/%40CL.1 |
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| http://data.cnbc.com/quotes/%40GC.1/tab/2 |
