Bullish momentum propelled stocks higher last week, although the French credit downgrade drama on Friday was enough to rekindle Euro zone woes and spark a broad-based sell-off before the weekend. Standard & Poor’s credit downgrade of France and Austria sparked volatile trading to start the week across European and Asian markets; investors on Wall Street will have to wait until tomorrow to readjust their portfolios as U.S. equity and bond markets are closed today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
With the holidays quickly approaching, the retail sector of the U.S. economy is gearing up for a short stretch that could make or break profitability forecasts and the mid-term outlook for companies that have exhibited surprising strength over the past 12 months. Retailers are already preparing for blow-out sales, Black Friday mania, and the oncoming [...]
Van Eck has begun the process of converting six HOLDRS products offered by Merrill Lynch into traditional ETFs that will be included under the Market Vectors lineup, offering investors an opportunity to exchange their receipts in HOLDRS trusts for shares in the new ETFs. The exchange requires affirmative action on the part of investors, meaning [...]
Van Eck announced last week a partnership with Merrill Lynch that may ultimately lead to the conversion of several HOLDRS products to soon-to-be-launched Market Vectors ETFs. As part of the agreement, Van Eck will introduce six new ETFs that maintain the same tickers as the existing HOLDRS but that will be part of the Market [...]
Equities across the globe continued their sluggish performance for most of last week, and while broad indexes managed to climb into positive territory the last few trading sessions, the week as a whole was fairly turbulent with no real movement in either direction. Gold climbed higher amidst uncertainty in the financial markets, closing the week [...]
The second week of May was a pretty poor one for American equity markets as high levels of volatility combined with fears over global growth and inflation to send markets to a loss for the week. Commodities were very mixed on the week’s news as some products– such as those in the energy sector and [...]
Last week was a quiet but generally positive one for the markets as shares rose in a variety of sectors thanks to stronger commodity prices and quality earnings reports. The biggest gainers came out of the basic materials sector where major oil firms gained significantly and oil equipment and service companies also posted solid trading [...]
The past week was marked by a flurry of activity in the U.S. as all eyes were fixed on the federal government with Congress’ session nearing a close. The legislative branch was finally able to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for another two years, with Obama signing the law late Friday. The passing of this [...]
So much for a nice, quiet Thanksgiving week. Between the back-and-forth negotiations surrounding a bailout of Ireland and yet another escalation of tensions between North and South Korea, recent sessions have featured no shortage of action. Now investors turn their attention to the U.S. consumer, preparing to analyze spending habits during the make-it-or-break-it shopping season.
This past week saw no shortage of events that had the financial world buzzing with activity. The Fed implemented a portion of their controversial quantitative easing plan, buying a number of U.S. Treasury securities in an effort to jump-start our struggling economy. While this policy has been met with mixed reaction at home, it has [...]
Although September has historically been one of the weakest months of the year for U.S. equities, markets have thrown aside this historical trend in recent weeks and continued their impressive rally last week. The S&P 500 got off to a good start in Monday trading only to stay range bound over the next day before [...]
