A new estimate of unemployment rate in 2011 is now available for Italy. In December 2011, it almost touched 9.0%. Here we validate our model of unemployment as a function of the change in labour force.     We introduced the model…

When interpreting labor statistics one should be very careful with Januaries. This is the month when major changes to the population estimates (including so called population controls, i.e. the distribution of population over age/sex/race) are introduc…

First published in the May/June 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs, The Black Swan of Cairo: How Suppressing Volatility Makes the World Less Predictable and More Dangerous is a thought-provoking effort by co-authors Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Mark Blyth to a…

Wynn Resorts Ltd (NASDAQ:WYNN) is considered the leading casino stock in the market. This morning, WYNN stock is trading lower by $5.27 to $115.59 a share. Yesterday after the closing bell, the company released earnings that were below analyst expectations. WYNN stock has been struggling to trade above the December 2011 highs which tell us [...]

Tomorrow morning, prior to the stock markets open, Non Farm Payrolls will be reported along with the Unemployment Report. This number will guide the markets for one day but have little long term impact. In 2012, volume has been missing. This is mainly due to the lack of buying by institutions. If institutions are not [...]

Yesterday’s post on Natural Gas, Contango and UNG appears to have generated a fair amount of interest across a broad base of readers, so for an encore I have decided to forego the typical collection of dazzling Liszt miniatures and skip directly to m…

As Facebook prepares to go public, anything in the social networking space has seen a monster increase in value. Stocks like Linkedin Corporation (NYSE:LNKD) are jumping today, trading at $76.45, +4.08 (+5.64%). In addition, Chinese social player Renren Inc. (NYSE:RENN)  is trading at $5.63, +0.62 (+12.38%). While these stocks have already run higher and are [...]

The leading financial stocks have been rallying higher since late November 2011. Many traders have discovered that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) seems to be the most important financial stock in the market at this time. This stock remains very strong on the daily chart. JPM stock is trading above the important daily chart [...]

This morning, Visa Inc (NYSE:V) and MasterCard Inc (NYSE:MA) are surging sharply higher. The catalyst for the rally in these two leading stocks is a strong reaction to the MasterCard earnings announcement. MA stock will have some short term intra-day resistance around the $385.00 level. Visa Inc stock is obviously trading higher in sympathy to [...]

I have talked at length in this space about the contango and negative roll yield issues that plague VXX. Periodically these discussions trigger a question from a reader about the impact of contango on some of the other ETPs. Just to be clear, as far a…