TheStreet: Why Silver Will Be a Better Bet Than Gold if the Precious Metals Rally Continues

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Anyone bullish on precious metals should consider silver instead of gold.

The white metal tends to see far more volatility, which is an advantage for traders in an up-trending market. Plus, silver prices are still playing catch-up with gold based on historical price analysis. Read more here.

Forbes: Brace Yourself For A Replay Of The 1989 Tiananmen Square Crackdown

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Three decades ago, the world watched aghast as the Chinese government crushed democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square Beijing.

Investors in China should brace themselves for a repeat performance. Read more here.

Forbes: Krugman Misses The Target On Corporate Taxes

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Economist Paul Krugman just wrote a column excoriating the Trump administration for a supposed multibillion-dollar tax giveaway to foreign corporations.

Unfortunately, Krugman hasn't just gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick, but rather the wrong stick entirely. Read more here.

Forbes: How A Corporate Debt-diet Is Saving Stocks

By SIMON CONSTABLE

At the beginning of the year, many investors were terrified that corporate America's debt binge would end in tears resulting in crashing stocks. But it didn't happen that way, not even nearly. Read more here.

Forbes: Don't Blame A Slowing Economy For Auto Industry Woes

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The car stocks have had a rotten time lately, but investors shouldn't blame the economy. Some of the industry's problems stem from car loans made to people with less than perfect credit. Read more here.

Barron's: How to Make a Fat Profit From Lean Hog Futures

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Commodity investors should consider pigging out on lean hogs. A record-breaking drop in global pork production will mean a massive shortfall of meat, which could spark a rally in hog prices of at least 20% by year end. 

“There isn’t enough pork in the word to solve this shortage,” Shawn Hackett, president of Boca Raton, Fla.–based Hackett Financial Advisors, told Barron’s. “Certainly, it can go back and retest these highs we saw earlier the year, and it may not stop there.” Read more here.

Forbes: Coming Soon To Markets: A U.S.-Europe Bust-up

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There's an eerie but placid tone in current U.S.-Europe relations.

Investors should view it as the calm before the storm that could eventually wreak havoc across global financial markets.

"It seems most likely that tensions between the U.S. and Europe rise in the coming months," writes Marc Chandler, chief currency market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. Read more here.

Photo by David Beale on Unsplash

Korn Ferry: The EU’s Reliance on Older Workers

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It’s the ideal goal of companies around the world—hire a steady stream of young, talented workers, then develop them into future leaders who in turn help the organization reach new heights.

But while all firms experience challenges in developing leaders, European organizations have an even more fundamental problem: hiring young workers in the first place. Read more here.

Darden: Cooking (and Uncooking) the Books: Corporate Financial Misreporting

By SIMON CONSTABLE

In business, mistakes happen all the time. But how many executives follow the rule “If you make a mess, clean it up”?

A mere one-in-six public companies almost certain to have misstated their earnings actually bothered to fix the problem, according to new research conducted by Justin Hopkins, a member of Darden’s Accounting faculty.

“You can identify firms to a high degree of likelihood whether they committed wrongdoing without their admitting to it,” says Professor Hopkins. Put bluntly, confessions aren’t required to identify the probable perpetrators. Read more here.

Forbes: The Bill To Green America's Electricity Industry Is As Big As The Banking Bailout

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The bill for greening your electricity is going to be as big as the banking bailout.

More specifically, the net cost of replacing all fossil fuel power stations with renewable energy will total more than $700 billion over the next three decades. That's comparable to what the U.S. Treasury paid to rescue the broken U.S. banks a decade ago.

That's also the low estimate. Read more here.

Forbes: What You Need To Know About Sadiq Khan's Rent Control Plan For London

By SIMON CONSTABLE

You really can't fix stupid.

Sadiq Khan, the left-leaning mayor of Britain's capital city, London, wants to introduce rent controls as a way to make housing more affordable.

The problem is that doing such a thing will almost certainly have the opposite effect of that desired and will make renting a home even harder.

Here's what you need to know and why it won't work. Read more here.

TheStreet: Harley Davidson Races Past Expectations but Motorcycle Sales Remain Sluggish

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Iconic motorcycle maker Harley Davidson raced past Wall Street expectations in the second quarter. The business, however, is slowing down. Read more here.

Photo by Donald Teel on Unsplash

The Street: Toymaker Hasbro Wins Big in Second Quarter, Crushes Estimates

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Toymaker Hasbro smashed Wall Street earnings estimates in the second quarter on the back of strength in North America.

The company posted adjusted earnings per share of 78 cents vs. analysts' expectations of 50 cents. Last year, the company earned 48 cents a share. Read more here.

TheStreet: Stanley Black & Decker Smashes Earnings Expectations

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Home improvement tools maker Stanley Black & Decker smashed earnings expectations with improved sales and reduced overhead driving the results.

In the second quarter, the company reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.66 vs. Wall Street expectations of $2.55. Earnings a year earlier were $1.93 a share. Read more here.

TheStreet: UBS Profit Rises Slightly but Hampered by Wealth Management, Investment Banking

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Swiss-based financial services company UBS posted a slight increase in second-quarter earnings though the results were hampered in part by its sluggish wealth management and investment banking divisions.

The bank also warned that lower interest rates and politics could impede growth in future profits. Read more here.

Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

TheStreet: Cal-Maine Foods Gets Scrambled as Earnings Fall on Oversupply of Eggs

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It's no yoking matter. Egg producer Cal-Maine Foods, just laid, well, an egg. Read more here.

Photo by Gabriel Gurrola on Unsplash

TheStreet: Crunch Time for U.S. Firms Wanting to Restart Sales to Huawei

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A White House tech summit scheduled for Monday could be a make or break for U.S. companies wanting to do business with China-based telecom firm Huawei Technologies.

The meeting, which is expected to be attended by tech bosses from Google-owner Alphabet and computer memory manufacturer Micron Technology as well as others, will discuss whether U.S. companies will be able to sell their products and services to Huawei, according to a report from Reuters. Huawei is the world's largest supplier for telecom technology. Read more here.

TheStreet: Disney Rules the Box Office With Roar of 'The Lion King' and 'Avengers: Endgame'

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Walt Disney had a heck of a weekend at the box office.

In its debut weekend, "The Lion King" took in a staggering $185 million of theater receipts, easily beating estimates of $150 million. Read more here.

One-On-One -- Simon Constable joins Hedgeye Podcast

NEW PODCAST
One-On-One -- Simon Constable joins Hedgeye

Topics include:

🇮🇹Why default may lie ahead in Italy
🥇Bullish Gold catalysts
💻Concerns around crypto
🇬🇧Why Britain's inept govt benefits its economy
💲Risks of cannabis ETFs https://t.co/wcYVJGBR3R

— Hedgeye (@Hedgeye) July 16, 2019

John Batchelor Show: Small-cap gold stocks looking good for acquisition by Big Gold

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Barron's: A Bargain Stock to Play East African Oil

By SIMON CONSTABLE

British-based but Africa-focused, Tullow Oil could come up a gusher. 

Its shares (ticker: TLW.UK) have the potential to jump 40% or more in the next 12 months, analysts say. Investors, they argue, are giving Tullow little credit for its prospects in East Africa. Read more here.

WSJ: Index-Fund Firms Gain Power, But Fall Short in Stewardship, Research Shows

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The three largest index-fund managers have grown so big that they ultimately could hamper the performance of public companies and the economy, according to research from corporate-governance scholars. 

The researchers—Lucian Bebchuk, professor of law, economics and finance at Harvard Law School, and Scott Hirst, a law professor at Boston University School of Law—recently published two papers that raise issues for investors. Read more here.

WSJ: Cannabis ETFs Aren’t the Same

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A burning desire for pot stocks may leave unwary cannabis investors with more speculative investments than they realize.

Take two exchange-traded funds focused on the cannabis industry: ETFMG Alternative Harvest (MJ) and the recently launched AdvisorShares Pure Cannabis (YOLO). While they both purport to track the same industry, they are actually quite different. Read more here.

Cannabis Plants

Chmee2, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

WSJ: What Is a Stock Rerating?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

When Wall Street analysts use the terms “rerating,” “rerate” or “derating,” they are talking about something at the heart of the investing process: changes in investor sentiment. Read more here.

Korn Ferry: Just Four Workdays in the UK?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

While the United Kingdom continues to figure out how to depart from the European Union, a number of the country’s politicians are debating whether to break away from a far more ensconced institution: the five-day workweek.

The UK’s Labour Party is considering a proposal to trim the five-day week for public-sector workers down to four. That comes, of course, as the debate about the length of workweeks has crisscrossed other countries and organizations. While a four-day workweek is still not practical in many cases, proponents say more flexible schedules can spur greater productivity and engagement from employees. Read more here.

Joe Piscopo Show: Discussing G-20 Summit & Tariffs

TheStreet: Why the Gold Rally Is Set to Run

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It's all systems go for gold investors.

The bullion market is stirring from a multiyear slumber and looks set to enter a sustained rally, experts say. Double-digit increases within the next 18 months may be only the start of the price surge. Read more here.