| US Dollar - Rebound Into the New Year?
Sales advanced 1.2% vs. 0.6% projected and although a large portion of the gain was due to increases at the gasoline pump, the overall data indicated that the US consumer has not tightened his purse strings just yet. As we wrote in Friday, ‘We’ve long argued that the US consumer is far more affected by labor market demand and wage growth rather than asset deflation and as such was less likely to curb spending significantly given the relatively healthy employment background. Yesterday’s Retail Sales produced the right catalyst for a greenback rally which has been woefully oversold and today’s price action, given the lack of overnight economic news suggests profit taking from some long term accounts and massive liquidation from late euro longs are the primary drivers of the move." With only a few weeks left in the year the need to lock in profits could persist next week and provide dollar with an added boost as more EURUSD longs are unwound.
In the Yard Sale Economy, we will be emptying our closets and garages
Every cloud has a silver lining. This time around, we know who gets the cloud. It's anyone who has been making a living from building, selling or financing residential real estate. It's anyone who has depended on being able to use their house as an ATM with serial cash-out refinancing. And it's lots of people in the financial services industry, where jobs are disappearing. Some of that cloud will also cover the rest of us, because there is a growing probability that 2008 will be a recession year. If you listen to the Chicken Little crowd, it will be a monster recession. If you listen to the Happy Talk crowd, it will just be a growth slowdown. What's missing in most discussion is the fact that our financial markets are shadows on the wall, erratic representations of the day-to-day world that geeks call "meat space." The question is what all of us meat space residents are going to be doing to adapt and cope.
Neal St. Anthony: Mosaic stock sees a sharp growth spurt
Remember the 1990s tech boom? Well, if 2007 is remembered for anything besides the subprime debt meltdown, perhaps it will be the fertilizer boom. Among Minnesota's biggest public companies, shares of global fertilizer giant Mosaic jumped 342 percent in 2007 to lead the Bloomberg Star Tribune 100 index as well as the national rankings of all large-cap stocks. The Cargill-controlled company has exploded from $15 per share at its 2004 initial public offering to $94.34 on Dec. 31. And while most of the market tanked in post-New Year's trading last week, Mosaic added another buck to its stock price, closing Friday at $95.41. Mosaic owes its success to the worldwide boom in agricultural commodities and to government-subsidized alternative fuels programs including ethanol and biodiesel that have boosted corn and soybean plantings to record levels.
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