Americas

Companies are dipping into their cash and even borrowing in a rush to pay out special dividends ahead of an expected increase in tax rates in 2013, raising the question of whether this will curb future growth in earnings. The third quarter earnings season is at an end; the books haven’t yet been closed on [...]

Big bargains tempted cautious consumers to spend during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, as shopping on Turkey Day displaced Black Friday, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Retailers invested a tremendous amount of marketing effort and energy in opening their doors earlier than ever before on Black Friday (and increasingly on Thanksgiving Day itself), and in making [...]

Despite a bumpy beginning to the month, by the end of November, assets in exchange-traded funds and other exchange-traded products had hit a record $1.9 trillion, according to data provided by ETFGI. With at least some sources of market uncertainty removed, investors resumed investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and products (ETPs) during November, contributing net [...]

Canadian investors have long been aware that their economic fortunes are closely entwined with that of their economically more-powerful neighbor to the south; the ongoing ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations are another reminder to the country’s bond market participants of the risks those ties can create. When Washington sneezes, London, Paris, Tokyo and Mexico City catch cold [...]

Last week’s fund flows displayed an unusual pattern; while investors continue to display an avid interest in ETFs, they pulled more assets out of conventional equity mutual funds. To buy or to sell? Stock market investors had utterly different responses to that question depending on whether the fund product they were talking about was a [...]

Corporate insiders stepped up their pace of stock purchases in dollars for the week following a slow Thanksgiving period, but not enough to raise overall dollar buying averages or sell/buy ratios. Insider buying for the top 1500 market capitalization stocks tracked by Thomson Reuters Stock Reports Plus totaled only $51.9 million, compared to the four [...]

A slowdown in the business climate, together with an uptick in market volatility, appears to be causing investors to huddle together for security and comfort in parts of the market where earnings growth appears to be most predictable – but also where it is already priced into current stock price levels, according to our StarMine [...]

Retailers are blaming superstorm Sandy for the disappointing increase in SSS for the month of November, but say they remain upbeat about the outlook for the holiday shopping season. A strong performance by retailers on Black Friday wasn’t enough to offset the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Sandy on retail sales during the month of September [...]

Investors continued to display a degree of risk aversion in the week ended November 28, with Lipper data showing they prefer to be in ultra-liquid equity ETFs than conventional mutual funds. An overdose of turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie didn’t curb investors’ appetite for stocks in the days immediately following Thanksgiving, although a wave of [...]

The BEA today announced that the US economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter. Growth was revised up from a 2.0% annualised pace, to 2.7%, and things should continue to improve. According to the latest OECD forecasts, the US economy is the only G7 member expected to grow at 2% or above over [...]