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2021-12-19 15:48:20 Eurozone’s Fiat is plunging – and probably won’t bounce back soon

The euro has weakened against the US dollar since the beginning of 2021, from around USD 1.23 to its current exchange rate of USD 1.13. That’s a fall of about 9%, which is significant, especially since these are the two major currencies of the world. The drop has also intensified in November, falling 3% since the turn of a month, which has seen violence in European capitals over COVID restrictions.

The decline should be seen in a broader context, though. The euro is still stronger than a couple of years ago, when it was about USD 1.10. It also went through some heavy weekly volatility from February to April 2020 in the early part of the COVID pandemic, bouncing between about USD 1.07 and USD 1.13 at a time when lots of investors were fleeing to the US dollar for safety and there was much uncertainty about what lockdowns would mean.

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2021-12-18 19:30:08 Odds of being a stock market winner in 2022 are in your favor for this one big reason

There’s a two-out-of-three chance the U.S. stock market will rise in 2022. A 66% probability of a rising market next year seems downright attractive, given that equities have more than doubled over the past 18 months. What many investors don’t realize is that these market odds stay the same from year to year, regardless of what’s come before.

Investors have a hard time accepting this because they believe the market exhibits trends. They assume that a good year makes it more likely the subsequent year will be rewarding, and a poor year sets up the probability of another disappointing year.

Dow Jones Industrial Average has posted yearly gains two-thirds of the time, no matter what.

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2021-12-18 16:08:40 Here’s what stock-market experts are blaming Friday’s wild price swings, and it’s not just quadruple witching

Friday is shaping up to be a doozy of a session on Wall Street, capping what has been a stomach-churning ride in markets over the past few weeks.

“Please fasten your seat belts and return your tray table to its full upright and locked position,” quipped Art Hogan, chief market strategist at National Securities Corporation, in comments on Friday afternoon.

The U.S. stock market’s Friday action seems particularly frenetic, and experts say that investors can attribute at least a part of the session’s moves to one novel factor: quadruple witching.

“This is the classic definition of volatility; big swings in both directions,” Randy Frederick, managing director trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab & Co., told on Friday.

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2021-12-17 21:32:25 Stock buybacks can keep surging next year after a potential record for 2021, analysts say

The surge in stock buybacks this year may surpass the pre-pandemic record — and U.S. companies could pick up the pace of share repurchases even more in 2022, according to market analysts.

Buyback volume may rise to around $848 billion in 2021, which would exceed the record $806 billion seen in 2018, according to preliminary estimates from Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst with S&P Dow Jones Indices. Companies in the S&P 500 index repurchased more than $234 billion worth of shares in the third quarter, he said by phone, topping the previous record set in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Yet the market expects buybacks next year can rise much higher and “well beyond” the record pace seen during the third quarter, according to a note earlier this week from Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research. “Companies are not buying anywhere near as much stock as they can.”

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2021-12-17 15:53:26 General Motors stock falls after autonomous-driving leader's departure announced

The chief executive of Cruise, the autonomous-driving-focused segment owned by General Motors Co. GM, -0.38%, is leaving the company, the car maker said Thursday afternoon. Dan Ammann, who came on as CEO of Cruise in 2019, will be replaced on an interim basis by Cruise's president and chief technology officer, Kyle Vogt, according to an announcement issued by GM on Thursday afternoon. Wesley Bush, the former chief executive of Northrup Grumman Corp. and a GM board member, was also named to the Cruise board on Thursday. Shares fell more than 3% in after-hours trading Thursday following the announcement.

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2021-12-16 15:24:06 Time for the Santa rally? U.S. stock market futures extend post-Fed swing higher

U.S. stock futures pointed to further gains Thursday, extending the rise that was seen after the Federal Reserve interest-rate decision.

Analysts said the Fed was, if anything, hawkish in its forecasts for interest-rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 as it increased the pace of the bond purchase taper.

“Based on asset price moves during the meeting and after, fear ahead of the FOMC meeting was probably even more exaggerated than we thought,” said Steve Englander, head of global G10 currency research and North America macro strategy at Standard Chartered.

“The initial market reaction does not always stick, but we suspect that both the Fed and investors are satisfied that the Fed is aware of and responding to inflation risks, while taking a measured, data-dependent approach in responding,” said Englander.

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2021-12-16 00:31:08 After a dazzling 2021, Apple and Tesla stocks are expected to be duds in 2022

A report from Goldman Sachs shows how much of investors’ money is concentrated in only five high-flying stocks. And a screen of the biggest contributors to this year’s excellent performance for the S&P 500 index highlights two that are expected not to perform well in 2022: Apple and Tesla.

Just five stocks — Microsoft Corp. MSFT, Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, Apple Inc. AAPL, Nvidia Corp. NVDA and Tesla Inc. TSLA — contributed over a third of the S&P 500 Index’s SPX 26% total return for 2021 through Dec. 9, according to analysts at Goldman. And from the end of April through Dec. 9, they contributed 51% of the index’s 13% return.

Moreover, only 25 stocks accounted for 58% of the index’s gains, including reinvested dividends, through Dec. 9, Goldman said. Its list of those stocks is below, along with screens of Wall Street analysts’ expectations for the group as we look ahead to 2022 and 2023.

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2021-12-16 00:29:26 What the Fed decision means for your wallet — and your credit card bill

All eyes were on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as the market digested the news Wednesday on what the central bank will do to keep the economy rebounding from the pandemic while countering the hot inflation that has consumers’ wallets sizzling.

Market observers were betting the Fed will conclude its bond buying — a move to help the economy in the pandemic’s earlier phases — quicker than expected and chart a course for more interest rate hikes.

The Fed said Wednesday afternoon it would reduce its bond purchases to $30 billion a month so it could end the program in March, instead of June. The Fed penciled in three rate hikes in 2022, instead of one hike.

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2021-12-15 15:44:51 Wall Street could crumble under the weight of a ‘carbon bubble,’ these groups warn

If Wall Street were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter of atmosphere-warming carbon emissions, nestling it right between Russia and Indonesia, a new report says.

A study with a title warning of “Wall Street’s Carbon Bubble” by the Sierra Club and the left-leaning Center for American Progress released Tuesday shows that eight of the largest U.S. banks and 10 of the largest U.S. asset managers combined to finance an estimated 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions based on year-end disclosures from 2020.

And the groups offer some policy suggestions ranging from stress testing to boosting deposit insurance tied to climate risks to toughening supervisory ratings, which financial services trade groups worry mix up short-term risks with longer-term risks.

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2021-12-14 15:24:45 What the electric-vehicle boom means for charging-station business ?

As more electric vehicles hit the road, more EV charging stations will be needed. The Biden administration plans to have 500,000 charging stations by 2030, up from only 43,800 today. Here is what investors need to know.

The current power plants cannot supply the additional electricity required for those planned electric vehicles in 2030 !!!

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