Chart of the Week

As the second chart below shows, corporations have been the main buyer of stocks since the market low. Corporate Stock Buyback Programs Are Not a Healthy Sign. As the first chart shows, rather than spend corporate profits on expansion, they are spending the money mainly on dividends and buying back their own stock. Notice in…

Wall Street Firms Hit 7-Year High in Allocation to the Stock Market. Despite the stock market’s high volatility sparked by worries about the domestic and global economies, Wall Street strategists are telling clients to overweight their portfolios in stocks at the highest level in seven years (see chart below from Bloomberg) as opposed to being…

Increase in inverted Sovereign Yield Curves globally means slower growth than Stock Market anticipates. The U.S. stock market is priced for an earnings troth and then reaccelerating of growth later this year.  But it is our opinion that the growth in the number of inverted sovereign treasury yield curves around the world is painting a…

The present declining yields indicates big economic woes ahead. Despite the Fed’s recent rate cut to stabilize the economy, yields are plunging instead of going up. And that’s very bad news for the economy and the stock market. Only two times in recent history – just before the crash of 1987 and the great financial…

Major Indicators Show Global Economy is Weakening. A growing number of countries are experiencing slowdowns in manufacturing. According to the Purchasing Manufacturing Index (PMI), a survey of prevailing economic marketing trends that is a major tool for corporate decision makers. The chart below shows tremendous growth in the number of countries with a PMI below…