by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Stocks on Speed: Margin Debt Spikes, So Does Risk Of Crash
The Fed must have seen the relentlessly spiking margin debt. Leverage is a sign of investor confidence. The great accelerator. On the way up. And on the way down. Margin debt has a nasty, very consistent habit of peaking just when the stock market begins to crash.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Icahn’s “No-Brainer” Goes To Heck (Manipulation Works Only Most Of The Time)
Carl Icahn must have tossed and turned Monday night, after the Apple debacle. Reeling from his losses, he was out there on Tuesday hyping the stock with all his might. They’re all doing it, from Warren Buffett on down, guys with billions of play-money and a loud voice.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on How to Manipulate the Entire IPO Market With Just $250 Million
Tech isn’t exactly booming, as we’ve seen from numerous revenue and earnings debacles, collapsing sales in China and Russia, massive layoffs…. But that hasn’t kept “valuations” of money-losing tech startups from being pushed into the stratosphere – for the benefit of a very elite club.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Corporate Malaise That The Stock Market Is Furiously Ignoring (for now) – Societe Generale’s Quant Research
“Thank goodness equities went up in 2013, otherwise it might have been a rather depressing year” – Societe Generale’s exasperated Global Quantitative Research team.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on German Economy Wobbles Between Shrinkage And Stagnation, Stocks Soar
Since 2012, German economic growth has been back where it was when Germany was called the “Sick Man of Europe.” Only this time, Germany has been anointed the model economy for others to follow and admire.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Hang On Tight: ‘Merger Monday,’ Which Died in 2008, Is Back
I thought we’d never see “Merger Monday” again, the concept. But now, the unthinkable happened, the zombie phrase has walked back into the scene. Like in the bubble days of 2007: the big numbers were there, the deal exuberance, the craziness, the hoopla.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on But Wait … The PC Industry Hopes That It Hasn’t Lost Hope Yet
Signs of the entire industry in a heap of trouble are everywhere. Rumors just bubbled up that Dell would axe 25% of its global sales staff – over 9,000 souls. HP is sacking 34,000. PC shipments, including laptops, have been awful for three years in a row.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Plagued By Indigestion, Fed Issues Asset-Bubble Warning
Hidden in the middle of the 25-page minutes of the last meeting, under the most wooden and convoluted prose, the Fed issued a doozie of a warning: it fretted about financial stability. It named soaring forward P/E ratios, stock buybacks, margin credit, and leveraged loans.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Corporate Earnings Goofiness Goes Hog Wild
Corporate earnings season has been a doozy before it even got started. The well-scripted song and dance, designed to pull a bag over investors’ heads, works marvelously: stalled revenues and earnings propel stocks higher. But the shenanigans are bumping into limits.
