For the third time in the last four months, the World Federation of Exchanges reported a significant gain in world stock market capitalization for the month of October, with a $2.5 trillion increase that pushed the total value of world stocks to $52.7 trillion (see chart). The October increase follows strong gains of $2.7 trillion in July and $3.8 trillion in September (and a slight decline of $0.50 trillion in August), for a cumulative four-month gain of $8.5 trillion
Wharton Professor and author Jeremy Siegel says that corporate earnings are “extraordinary”, and that he’s never seen stocks selling at such attractive values compared to bonds. Siegel tells Bloomberg that risk aversion is the highest he’s ever seen in the market. “I’ve never seen such favorable valuations of stocks versus bonds,” he says. “I’ve seen cheaper stocks — we’ve seen stocks [trading at] single-digit P/E ratios. But relative to the bond market, you have to go back to the
The fed likes these buy-backs - that's one way to get stock prices up. Monday, September 20, 1:40 PM Stock buybacks are seeing their biggest increase ever - fueled by cheap credit. American firms have announced $55.9B in repurchases since June. "It’s so cheap to do it now in the bond market: issue debt, fix their cost of capital, then shrink the number of shares outstanding," says one strategist. "The markets are almost calling for them
For the first time in a long time, insiders have bought more stock than sold since the end of March 2009 - a generational low in the stock market. As insiderscore.com$$ notes, this buying is not as impressive as the buying before that bottom, it is the most encouraging insider "buy" signal in more than a year.Scattershot Buying Lifts Insider Sentiment To Best Levels Since March
BERK: In a Wall Street Journal column entitled The President's Animosities: Since when was the American idea us versus them?, Dan Henninger calls out Obama's words and actions as the most hostile to the private sector in his lifetime. This is why the economy and the stock market are so volatile. Economists
CARPE DIEM: V-Shaped Recovery: "Virtually Unstoppable" Shared via AddThis "With WLI (Weekly Leading Index) growth rocketing to a new record high, the economic recovery will prove to be far more resilient in coming months than most believe possible," said Lakshman Achuthan, ECRI's managing director. "The risk of a double dip
