Market Overview

The world rally resumed despite a holiday-shortened week for six of the eight indexes on my world watch list (only the Nikkei and Shanghai indexes were open on Friday). The big winner for the week was...

Note from dshort: I've updated this commentary to include the latest labor force data in today's employment report.Every week I post an update on new unemployment claims shortly after the BLS report...

Friday's release of the publicly available data from the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) puts its Weekly Leading Index (WLI) at 132.6, up slightly from 131.5 the previous week. The WLI...

Here are the lead paragraphs from the Employment Situation Summary released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 126,000 in March, and the...

With spring now upon us, we can see the impact the Easter Bunny has had on financial markets…a lot of bouncing around. More specifically, stocks spent about 50% of the first quarter in negative...

Today we got Bob’s views on the general stock market, crude oil and perhaps more important, the gold market and gold stocks. Bob believes that gold is in a 20-year long bull market that is...

The US labor market hit a rather large speed bump in March, decelerating to the slowest pace of growth since Dec. 2013, the Labor Department reports. Companies added a sluggish 129,000 jobs last...

In Thursday’s NFP Preview report, we highlighted the unusual circumstances surrounding this month’s release, stating: “...many traders will be out of the office for Good Friday,...

The US March employment report makes for dismal reading. Job growth collapsed to 126k, the least monthly total since December 2013. Adding insult to injury, there was a 69k downward revision to this...

Since the financial markets are closed today, I thought we could get a jump on the Easter weekend reading list.As I discussed earlier this week, the deterioration in both economic data and...

The US employment report stands between us and the weekend. With parts of Asia and nearly all of Europe closed, participation is obviously considerably lighter than normal. This coupled with...

Each week I read dozens of transcripts from earnings calls and presentations as part of my investment process. Below is a weekly post which contains some of the most important quotes about the economy...

During the session on Friday, the only focus that the markets will have will be on the Non-farm Payroll numbers. The employment situation in the United States of course is vital for the economy that...

Here is a summary of the four market valuation indicators I updated at the beginning of the month. The Crestmont Research P/E Ratio (more) The cyclical P/E ratio using the trailing 10-year earnings...