Global Markets with John Blank

By Zacks - John BlankBusiness Investing

Global Markets with John Blank episodes

September 28, 2017 Check it Out! A Rich Small Cap Ecosystem.
Upstream is electronics, downstream are big stock returns.
5 min
September 28, 2017 This Business Cycle IS Different
Every hear of the high DURATION of USA unemployment spells?
7 min
August 31, 2017 Outsourcing Picks – Biz’s That Better Digital Ops Quickly
The Digital Transformation is Creating Big Opportunities
6 min
August 31, 2017 A Deep Dive Into Last Earnings Season
Strength --across the board-- in the earnings reports in the second quarter is evident in the high number of Very Attractive Sectors in the month of August. Info Tech, Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples, Industrials, Health Care (5 of 10 sectors); all of these are Very Attractive. And Materials is Attractive. This is remarkable, and something I haven’t seen in some time. But reading broadly, it is confirmed. This is the story of this earnings season. The earnings beats are coming in very strong. They are falling into every sector we separate out and look at.
7 min
July 20, 2017 Do Airline Stocks Have More Room to Run?
A Midsummer Night’s Dream! Time to travel to the lakes, the beach, and the mountains. The Airline Transportation industry is what caught my attention in July. Zacks Industry Rank System put Airlines at #13 out of 265 industries we rank. That puts this 25-company strong group into the top 5%.YTD returns have been +19.8%, while the S&P500 offered +10.8%. This spells out a nice share price outperformance. But can it continue? The airline industry shoulders a lot of significant risks. Macro factors like sudden shifts in personal disposable income and spending patterns, safety concerns like terrorist attacks, oil price shocks, and covering analyst sentiment, all of these can turn quickly. They weigh on airline profits.
In addition, the USA “welcome mat” has been selectively removed from our airports, gratis the President’s Travel Ban. The world’s tourists (more broadly) have taken notice. In March, Tourism Economics forecasts had projected 4.3 million fewer visitors to the USA in 2017, with $7.4 billion in lost revenue. Let’s see what actually happens. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments and write its opinion on the travel ban later this year, or early next year.

As to longer-term risk management --going forward-- look for order deferrals on large aircraft. This is not usually a good sign, on future demand at that particular airline.

5 min
July 20, 2017 Just the Facts, Ma’am: July Strategy Update
Each month, I ask myself. What do longer-term equity readers really need to focus on, right now? Traders just closed out the first 6 months of 2017. What’s my answer in July? I quote Detective Joe Friday, from the old TV show Dragnet: “Just the facts, ma’am”.
(1) What of U.S. GDP growth? This should be a top-of-mind fundamental. On July 6th, GDPNow for Q2 has +2.7%. Final Q1-17 GDP showed modest +1.2% growth.

(2) Improved U.S. earnings and low U.S. unemployment claims still say: “Don’t worry”. Q2 looks for +6.6% EPS growth. A strong Q1-17 earnings season is in the bag. It scored a stunning +13.9% in EPS growth.

(3) Monthly labor market evidence? That is as follows. The U.S. created +222K in June, +152 in May, +207K in APRIL, +50K in MAR, +232K jobs in FEB and +216K jobs in JAN. Recall: June was the biggest job addition last year.

(4) U.S. unemployment was 4.4% in JUNE. This is ‘frictional’ or ‘natural’ unemployment.
7 min

About Global Markets with John Blank

From the publisher's feed

John Blank, the Chief Equity Strategist at Zacks Investment Research, takes a look at current market, economic, and industry trends going on around the world.