Michael's Personal Notes

I often write about the crisis faced by the municipalities, cities, and states across the U.S. as they continue to register budget deficits year after year. Cities like Detroit and others in California have already filed for bankruptcy. When all of this was happening, I kept asking: when…

The bear dressed as a bull has done a masterful job at luring more and more investors back into key stock indices. Data from the Investment Company Institute shows that for the week ended September 18, long-term stock mutual funds had inflows of $3.3 billion. For the week…

Boy, they just don’t like gold bullion. The gold bears are getting excited over every negative movement in gold prices. As soon as the precious metal’s prices decline a little, we start to hear chants, like “Gold bullion is useless.” Sadly, most of the market is too focused…

The chart below of the Dow Jones Industrial Average depicts the precise moment when the Federal Reserve made its announcement last Wednesday that it was not planning to taper its quantitative easing at this time. Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com This is really troublesome. Key stock indices have become…

Last week, I attended the Toronto Resource Investment Conference, which is organized by Cambridge House International. This annual conference features companies involved in the resources sector, mainly gold bullion and silver explorers and producers. To say the very least, the sentiment at the conference was dismal, and the…

It has been very well documented in these pages how the demand from India and China for gold bullion is increasing. We have also seen central banks buying the precious metal to protect their reserves. But when I look at other side of the equation, the supply side,…

I keep a keen eye on the second-biggest economy in the world simply because China is experiencing an economic slowdown that can and will affect the U.S. economy, and hurt the profitability of our U.S. multinational companies. Since the beginning of this year, the economic slowdown in the…

The U.S. national debt has increased significantly over the last few years, especially after the credit crisis struck the U.S. economy. To stop the economy from totally collapsing, the U.S. government incurred several trillion-dollar budget deficits in a row as it spent to revive the economy. As yearly…

After the financial crisis, companies in the U.S. economy were able to show robust growth in their corporate earnings; they were able to sell their products and services to where the demand was outside the U.S., to the global economy. Unfortunately, the tides are turning. The global economy…

What kind of return should investors expect from the key stock indices the day after the last weekend of summer? Here’s some insight. In the 23-year period from 1990 to 2013, the highest return achieved by the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Tuesday after the Labor Day weekend…

So far, 487 companies in the S&P 500 have reported their second-quarter earnings. Turns out 72% of them were able to beat mean estimates. The blended corporate earnings growth rate for S&P 500 companies in the second quarter was 2.1%. (Source: “Earnings Insight,” FactSet, August 23, 2013.) On…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that real average weekly earnings (that’s earnings adjusted for price change) in the U.S. economy declined 0.5% in July from June of this year. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, August 15, 2013.) But this is just the monthly difference in…

Wednesday’s release of the much anticipated Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting minutes basically said the Federal Reserve will continue to run its printing presses at the same speed at which they have been running since late last year—until further notice. So when will the Fed pull back…

Risks in the bond market continue to pile up quickly. Bond investors need to be very careful. They need to be very vigilant about their next step. June was the first month since August of 2011 that U.S. long-term bond mutual funds experienced a net outflow. A total…

The corporate earnings growth of companies in key stock indices for the second quarter has been very weak—and it looks like yesterday the stock market finally started to take note (the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 225 points yesterday). To boost per-share earnings, companies in key stock…

Back in 2011, when the price of gold bullion was marching towards the $2,000-per-ounce mark, it was becoming difficult for the average investor to get into the “gold game” without paying a high price. Since the beginning of this year, we have seen gold bullion prices come down…

Through its quantitative easing program, the Federal Reserve has created about $3.0 trillion in new money out of thin air. This was all in the name of getting consumer confidence in the U.S. economy going again. Did this actually occur? As it stands right now, consumer confidence in…

The jobs market in the U.S. economy is anemic; don’t for a second let the key stock indices make you believe the economy has improved. While the mainstream and politicians are concerned about the numbers of jobs created in the U.S. economy, I look at their quality. Readers…

Our in-house gold guru, Robert Appel, BA, BBL, LLB, issued an e-mail alert a few days ago, which I’d like to share with my Profit Confidential family of readers: “We wish to thank those readers who have commented that our publication has evolved into one of the most…

The Chinese economy, the second-biggest economy in the world, is witnessing a significant decline in manufacturing. The HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), compiled by financial information company Markit, fell to 47.7 in July from 48.2 in June. (Source: Markit, August 1, 2013.) Remember: any reading below…