Tim Iacono The Census Bureau reported that retail sales in the U.S. rose more than expected in August, the biggest gain in five months, due largely to higher sales of gasoline and food. Retail sales rose 0.4 percent in August after a gain of 0.3 percent in July, the latest figure topping expectations for a 0.3 percent increase. Excluding automobile...

The Market Ticker Let’s have a look… The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for August, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $363.7 billion, an increase of 0.4 percent (±0.5%)* from the previous month, and...

By Phil at Phil’s Stock World Interesting Gallup poll: Only 1 in 3 Americans actually favor keeping tax cuts for the top 2% (people making over $250,000 a year). As Barry Ritholtz says, that may come as a shocker to anyone who watches CNBC or reads the Journal or Fox or other conservative information sources.  Maybe the Democrats aren’t...

Precious metals soar as investors flock to gold and silver. But are they looking deep enough to truly understand the current trends at hand? When reviewing the metals sector I like to look at it from different angles to get a solid understanding of the patterns and trend forming. I follow multiple time frames along with monitoring the gold mining stocks....

Tim Iacono There’s a pretty neat interactive graphic over at the Associated Press where they’ve got the rates for unemployment, foreclosures, and bankruptcies by county across the entire U.S. going back to late-2007, just before the start of the Great Recession. Not surprisingly, the housing bubble states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida...

Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge For those who follow our periodic updates on intraday stock volume, today’s article by the Wall Street Journal which focuses on the dramatic decline in activity during regular working hours will come as no surprise. In a piece looking at prop trading shop Briargate (oh so witty anagram of arbitrage), founded...

By Marin Katusa, Chief Energy Strategist, Casey Research One can only hope that the “Don’t shoot the messenger” adage is still popular in the international community. UK-based consultants M&C Energy Group have become the latest to join the chorus of voices asking the international community to increase the pressure on China and India to switch...

Courtesy of Doug Short, based on the work of Rick Davis at Consumer Metrics Institute Note from dshort: Now updated through September 6th. I highly recommended the Institute’s public commentaries, especially Viewing the “Great Recession” in Hi-Def. Scroll down to the entry dated September 1. I’ve reprinted the concluding two paragraphs...

It’s hard to ignore the media coverage on global markets these days – I find myself avoiding CNBC during market hours more and more just to keep my focus where it needs to be. Across all major news sources we’ve heard a lot in the last year, the Dubai Debt Crisis, European Debt Debacle (P.I.I.G.S), fear of a U.S. double dip and more, but...

I am going to step out on a limb in this report and cover what I think to be an intermediate top in the precious metals sector. Everyone I speak with and from the hundreds of emails I get I would say the vast majority are bullish on gold and silver. That being said, I feel we are 3-8 days away from a pop and drop in the price of gold. Below are...

By David Galland, Managing Editor, The Casey Report Recently, we have had a number of queries about real estate. And no wonder. For starters, real estate prices have come down. Plus, in an environment with next to zero interest rates, the idea of possibly picking up some income-producing property on the cheap holds a certain appeal to some....

By Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture Yesterday, Peter Boockvar referenced two WSJ articles on P/E:  The Decline of the P/E Ratio and Is It Time to Scrap the Fusty Old P/E Ratio? I believe these articles are asking the wrong question. Rather than wondering if the value of P/E ratio is fading, the better question is, “What does a falling P/E ratio...

The Mess That Greenspan Made Jim Bianco of Bianco Research explains to Erin Burnett at CNBC the difference between leading and lagging indicators after the release of the Fed’s beige book earlier today. Why do discussions like this always center around whether we’ll have a double-dip recession? Anemic growth over an extended period will be...

Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist Consumer credit contracted $3.6B in July.  In short, the year over year rate is improving, but the bottom line is that consumer credit continues to contract as the de-leveraging continues at the household level (via Econoday): “Consumer credit outstanding in June contracted $1.3 billion-but at least it was...

Today more and more investors are warming to the fact that psychology moves markets and therefore fundamental analysis, which fails to properly measure mass investor psychology, must be flawed. Who can blame them? After all, fundamental analysis ...