Drought conditions persist in much of western U.S. Besides the headlines coming out of California, some other key areas are experiencing ...

Equities continue to outperform commodities. During the last decade commodities have not only lagged stocks but have absolute declines in...

There has been a significant rebound in used car prices from the lows in April. According to the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, prices...

Gold volatility, as measured by the gold etf, has come off of highs but still elevated compared with recent history (black line). Vol als...

There has been recent commentary on the drop in the U.S. Dollar. Typically, moves in the dollar are measured by an index of developed cou...

Hedge fund performance this year has varied depending on the type of strategy. With the S&P 500 making a round trip this year and now rou...

Another big day for tech stocks with the NASDAQ 100 up 2.9%. There have been some comparisons with the dot-com period. The top panel of t...

Fastenal's June daily sales rose 9.5% yoy down from May's 14.8% pace. Fasteners, the largest segment, fell 11.4% in June vs. a 15.3% drop...

Precious metals holdings in ETFs have increased in 2020. Gold ETFs currently hold 104.2 million ounces of gold, an increase of 25.7% from...

An extraordinary quarter for equities. The S&P 500 increased 20% for the quarter, the best performance since 2011. With tech stocks conti...

It's only one company but Fastenal sells products to a wide range of industrial customers and provides a glimpse into production activity...

Here is another sign of just how extraordinary the recent government and Federal Reserve actions have been; the money supply measured by ...

The S&P 500 has rebounded by 39.1% from this year's closing low on 3/23 while the Euro Stoxx 50 index is up 37% from it's closing low on ...

U.S. oil rig count fell to 258 or 62% from December 2019. This is a level not seen since 2009. Crude oil production, using the DOE weekly...

Profit margins had been elevated until this year but are still above average. The top panel of the chart shows S&P 500 profit margin in o...

Fastenal daily sales were up 6.7% during April. Sales of safety equipment were up 119.7%, more than offsetting the fastener decline of 22...

Real yields negative and that doesn't take into account taxes. Currently, the 10-year U.S. treasury constant maturity yield is 0.72% (blu...

Here's a historical look at stock vs. bond valuations. This simply compares the S&P 500 earnings yield (E/P or inverse of P/E) to the 10-...

Used car prices in the U.S. during the first 15 days of April fell 11.8% from March according to Manheim. If this holds for the remainder...

The turmoil (pun intended) in the crude oil markets this week suggests it's time for a review of futures markets. The roll yield causes a...