Jobless claims improved again

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jul 16, 2009 in Blog | 2 comments Today jobless claims fell for the second straight week. This week’s fall was 47,000. Not only that but the number of continuing claims fell by 642,000 to 6.3 million. Continuing claims are people who have filed for unemployment for more than one week. Analysts have been reluctant to hail this information as good news. The reason is that there are some estimates of layoffs in the data....
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Upbeat reports from tech firms

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jul 15, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Intel Intel reported its results after the financial markets closed last night. The numbers were good and better than expected. Both revenues and profits were much stronger than in the first quarter. Not only that but Intel is very famous for giving accurate insight into the technology sector 6-12 months out. That market commentary and guidance was upbeat and clearly indicates that Intel’s...
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Some pertinent updates

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jul 14, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Here are some pertinent news stories… U.S. retail sales were up 0.6% in June, the second consecutive monthly rise. Many categories were down slightly, but many categories were up slightly, too. Interestingly, most news outlets, despite the fact that retail sales were up are emphasizing that if you exclude spending on fuel and automobiles retail sales were actually down 0.2%. Yet, if you...
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What’s going on and where I feel we are headed

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jul 9, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Hello everyone, Something has been on my mind since the beginning of the blog last October. I have shared many of the details that make up the bigger picture. But I’m not sure that I have related that bigger picture to everyone. What’s Going On In general, the massive, unsustainable economic culture of the United States is experiencing creative destruction. It is obvious to me that...
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Alcoa reports

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jul 9, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Alcoa (ticker:AA), the world’s largest aluminum company reported its results last night. The results were better than expected, however, it would be hard to say that they were “good.” Probably the most important piece of news from Alcoa was from its CEO’s comments. He stated that he was seeing some signs of strengthening in aluminum prices. He also said that some markets,...
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Various economic data mostly positive

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jul 9, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Today quite a lot of economic data hit the news. Here is a summary of stuff… New claims for unemployment last week were at their lowest level of the year. The claims are measured using data from the states. Obviously this is a positive sign. On a 4-week basis the claims also dropped. This data point is highly volatile because it is not just a raw number and includes estimates and...
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Reining in the commodities speculators

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jul 8, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments Happy Wednesday! More of the regulatory changes are on the way. This time the push is coming from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the focus is on oil market trading. Thank God! Many of you know that I have decried the influence of speculators in oil markets several times on the blog. In summary, when oil was trading around $140/barrel I said that the overwhelming majority of...
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