The Economist (January 12)
“Analysts reckon that the number of smartphones sold in 2018 will be slightly lower than in 2017, the industry’s first ever annual decline.” “Peak smartphone” may be “bad news for Apple shareholders,” but the apparent “levelling off at around 1.4bn units a year is good news for humanity.”
Tags: Analysts, Apple, Decline, Humanity, Industry, Peak smartphone, Shareholders, Smartphones
MarketWatch (November 27)
The plan to close plants and slash workforce “is good for GM—and it could shake up things at Tesla and Ford too.” Despite coming under political fire, GM’s “newly announced cost-cutting plan has drawn praise on Wall Street, with analysts applauding the car maker for sharpening its focus on higher-growth areas such as driverless and electric vehicles and forestalling a slowdown in its business.”
Tags: Analysts, Cost cutting, Driverless, EVs, Ford, GM, Plants, Slowdown, Tesla, Wall Street, Workforce
Wall Street Journal (August 21)
“Investors are running out of reasons to keep buying U.S. stocks, exposing a growing number of warning signs. The historic calm that enveloped U.S. stocks for much of this year has been upended twice in the past two weeks…. It is too soon to call the end of the eight-year bull market, investors, traders and analysts say, but many agree the indiscriminate optimism that characterized the postelection rally is evaporating.”
Tags: Analysts, Bull market, Indiscriminate, Investors, Optimism, Rally, Stocks, Traders, U.S., Warning signs
Bloomberg (June 2)
“China’s yuan policy has blindsided forecasters once again. The sudden surge in the last four days — for the onshore exchange rate, it’s been the steepest gain in more than four months — pushed the currency beyond levels predicted by even the most optimistic analysts.” At least eight analysts rushing to change their estimates. This is not the first time they have been caught flat footed. “Market watchers were caught off guard earlier in the year as well, when the yuan confounded expectations by strengthening in the first quarter.”
Tags: Analysts, Blindsided, China, Confounded, Currency, Exchange rate, Expectations, Forecasters, Gain, Yuan
Reuters (April 27)
For “the first time since March 2008 the BOJ used the word ‘expansion’ to describe the state of the economy, signaling its conviction that the recovery was gaining momentum.” Still, some “analysts doubt inflation will accelerate as quickly as the BOJ projects, with slow wage growth keeping households from boosting spending.”
Tags: Analysts, BOJ, Economy, Expansion, Household spending, Inflation, Momentum, Recovery, Wage growth
Institutional Investor (April 13)
“The sell side doesn’t quite get it yet,” but a major shift will soon transform their very existence. With Phase two of the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) scheduled to take effect in January, broker-dealers must “explicitly price a dark art whose cost was previously wrapped into trading commissions (on equity products) or spread (on fixed income). And that, in turn, could put a lot of analysts out of work in Europe, the U.K….and, in time, the U.S. and everywhere else.” Current predictions are that by 2020 global research volume will decrease by around 25% to 60%… or even more.
Tags: Analysts, Broker dealers, EU, MiFID, Research, Sell-side, Spread, Trading commissions, U.S., UK, Volume
Bloomberg (February 6)
“Just a few weeks ago, Wall Street analysts were busy boosting their economic forecasts on the expectation that President Trump would implement sweeping corporate-tax reform, a rollback of regulations, and new fiscal stimulus.” After seeing the first two weeks of the Trump Presidency, the analysts are having second thoughts. Their forecasts are now poised for “a rethink, if not an outright reversal.”
Tags: Analysts, Expectation, Forecasts, Regulations, Rethink, Reversal, Second thoughts, Stimulus, Tax reform, Trump, Wall Street
Financial Times (January 4)
Whether “Abenomics remains a relevant force…may depend heavily upon the performance of the Nikkei 225 Average over the next six weeks.” If the “huge dip that savaged the benchmark” last year during the same period can be avoided, many analysts believe “we may be looking at a market with enough foreign buying and other support to sustain the current bull run.”
Tags: Abenomics, Analysts, Benchmark, Bull run, Dip, Foreign buying, Market, Nikkei 225, Performance, Relevant force, Support
Institutional Investor (December 14)
It’s difficult for analysts to rise above groupthink since they “tend to use the same quantitative information…and similar methodologies.” Remarkably, some do. Institutional Investor recognizes them annually. Still, it seems that one day algorithms will “displace analysts entirely, meaning that these algorithms will themselves become eligible, in principle, for election to the II All-America Research Team.”
Tags: Algorithms, All-America Research Team, Analysts, Groupthink, Information, Methodologies, Quantitative
Financial Times (November 8)
Stung by the strong yen, over 100 TOPIX-listed manufacturers have issued profit warnings. Conventional cost cutting is no longer doing the trick. “After decades of building plants overseas and trying to make production leaner and more efficient to address the currency vulnerability, analysts say Japanese companies are facing a sobering reality: the urgency to sell underperforming businesses and join hands with rivals to survive brutal market conditions.”
Tags: Analysts, Cost cutting, Efficient, Japan, Leaner, Manufacturers, Overseas, Plants, Production, Profit warnings, Topix, Underperforming, Vulnerability, Yen
