The biggest event of the weekend, if not the month, was China's FX reserve outflow update, which at $100BN was slightly better than the $120BN expected (it pushed China's reserves to the lowest in nearly 4 years) but it was in the "no man's land" between the BofA best case scenario ($37.5BN), and the GS worst case ($197BN).
On the first day of this month, Google.. er, Alphabet.. turned in an impressive quarter.
Revenues soared 18% Y/Y while Q4 earnings were $8.67/share, well above the $8.08 the Street was looking for and a whopping $2 more than Q4 2014. Paid clicks rose by more than a third while FCF rose to $4.3 for the period. In short, just about everything looked great with the possible exception of CPC, which dropped 13%.
Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
RALLY FAILS, ALERTS RISE
Last week, I discussed the boost the market received as the BOJ made an unexpected move into negative interest rate territory combined with end of the month buying by portfolio managers. To wit:
Submitted by Pam Martens and Russ Martens via WallStreetOnParade.com,
Last night ABC began its two-part series on the Bernie Madoff fraud. Viewers will be reminded about how investment expert, Harry Markopolos, wrote detailed letters to the SEC for years, raising red flags that Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme – only to be ignored by the SEC as Madoff fleeced more and more victims out of their life savings.
Submitted by Eric Bush via Gavekal Capital blog,
The S&P 500 is currently down a little over 7% YTD and 11% of the May 2015 high. Unfortunately, all signs coming out of the bond market are signalling a further fall in equity prices.
The spread between AAA rated corporate bonds and the 10-year treasury bond has blown out to 213 basis points over the past couple weeks. This is the widest spread since September 2011, during another period of market turmoil.