Business

After two consecutive quarters of disappointing earnings reports (which however failed to keep the stock down), AMZN is back to its beating ways, reporting both revenue and EPS which blew away expectations. In the first quarter, Amazon reported earnings of $724 million or $1.48 per share, a 41% increase in quaraterly profit, and some 40 cents above the consensus estimate of $1.08, on net sales of $35.71 Billion, also higher than the estimate of $35.3 Billion, and up from $19.2 billion.

A slew of disappointing data (hard and soft), government shutdown fears growing, collapsing GDP expectations, and declining earnings expectations... WTI and RBOB plunging, bonds bid, and gold higher... and then there's North Korea!!

What Does Elemetal Imply for Precious Metals?

Back in 2007/2008, Wall Street drastically pulled back on mortgage origination for their own balance sheets while ramping up their issuance of RMBS securities.  Of course, the goal was very simple: package up all the mortgage-related nuclear waste on your balance sheet into a pretty package, tie a ribbon around it with that AAA-rating from Moody's and sell it all to unsuspecting pension funds and insurance companies around the globe. 

After a strong 2 Year on Tuesday, poor 5 Year on Wednesday we close the week with the Treasury's sale of $28 billion in 7 Year paper in what can only be described as a spectacular auction.

The high yield priced at 2.084%, stopping 2bps through the 2.104%, the biggest gap between the two going back to January 2016.

The Bid to Cover was a whopping 2.733, the highest going all the way back to November 2012.