"The first million is the hardest." That's a true saying—because once your money is working for you, the compounding process makes subsequent growth easier. But the process can work in reverse as well.
| | Good morning. De Beers, the family behind one of the world's largest fortunes, helped coin the phrase "a diamond is forever." That may be true for the life of a purchaser, but a diamond is actually an unstable form of carbon that will eventually change—albeit in thousands of years.
Nevertheless, changing consumer demands are doing what geology will take eons to do. Sales are down nearly 44 percent in the past year, as consumers are shifting to different gemstones, including lab-grown diamonds instead. Investment lesson? Nothing is forever. | | | | | | | | | | DOW 26,864.27 | -1.23% | | | | S&P 2,980.38 | -1.09% | | | | NASDAQ 8,175.42 | -1.19% | | | | *As of market close | | • | Stocks traded up at the open on modest trade optimism and earnings, but slid to a big loss following comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell explaining the interest rate cut. | | • | Oil prices rose on another large inventory drawdowns, and precious metals traded flat ahead of the Fed, but both fell for the day. | | • | Cryptocurrencies generally roses, albeit lightly. Bitcoin topped $10,000. | | | | | | Fed Lowers Interest Rates 0.25 Percent | | | | The Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Wednesday by 0.25 percent. It is the first rate cut by the central bank since 2008, when it slashed interest rates to zero.
Unlike then, the economy is growing, although it is showing signs of a slowdown. And the rate cut still leaves interest rates above 2 percent, for the time being.
» FULL STORY | | | | | | Crude Oil Inventories Make Another Sharp Drop | | | | Data from the EIA on petroleum inventories showed a further big drop, with a decline of 8.5 million barrels. While less than the prior week's drop of 10.8 million barrels, the consensus was for a drop of only 2.6 million barrels.
Gasoline also fell 1.8 million barrels, beating expectations for a 1.5 million barrel drop. And distillates dropped 0.9 million barrels against an expected gain of 1 million barrels.
» FULL STORY | | | | | | Insider Activity: CARBO Ceramics (CRR) | | | | On Tuesday, July 30th, Gary Kolstad, President and CEO of CARBO Ceramics (CRR) bought 50,000 shares of his company, paying $53,000. This increased his stake by over 10 percent, bringing his total share ownership in the company to over 512,000 shares.
This is the first insider buy at CARBO this year, but Kolstad has been a buyer multiple times in 2018 at far higher prices.
» FULL STORY | | | | | | | Unusual Options Activity: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) | | | On Wednesday, shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) dropped following decent, but lackluster earnings. Some traders saw further weakness, as evidenced by a number of bearish options trades following the earnings report.
One particularly active option was the September 20th $26.00 put options, expiring about 50 days away. The option saw over 3,100 contracts trade against a prior interest of 174, for a nearly 18-fold increase in volume.
» FULL STORY | | | | | | | TOP | | MKC | 6.814% | | | ULTA | 6.12% | | | PM | 2.502% | | | V | 1.326% | | | NKTR | 1.18% | | | BOTTOM | | ETFC | 10.097% | | | SCHW | 7.703% | | | XEC | 5.415% | | | FANG | 5.148% | | | APA | 4.771% | | | | | | | | | While Trump accuses the world's second largest and fastest growing economy of lying, Xi is talking about how China must now rely on domestic demand to manage current "risks and challenges". Xi is making clear he has no intention of pandering to Trump, and sending a clear signal Beijing is prepared for trade war if Trump presses the button | - Shard Capital analyst Bill Blain on trade war risks | | |
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