The dollars continued decline will raise inflation eventually and will sadly be the result of damaged economic growth, what little we have. We should be careful. Companies with lots of overseas sales is one of the only good hedges.

Maximizing shareholder value works in a strictly capitalist society, however we don't like in one right now. The sad fact is maximizing value means incurring added debt and diverting assets to stock buybacks rather than investing in the company. This naturally is the byproduct of the Federal Reserve manipulation that is destroying American business. Sadly, these actions, although maximizing shareholder value in the short run can lead to business death in the long run. Thus long term maximization is the same, however, the short run perspective dominates because the low rate manipulation has gone too far for too long.

Danger Danger Will Robinson.

Tesla continues to have no problems with its cash burn because it can always go to the market or take out debt. The market will sustain it until it doesn't and borrowing is not a problem because like Trump's business practices, they control the bank because if they default on you the losses will be substantial thus banks need to keep lending if they don't want to log it as bad debt. This is the exact reason why bad recessions happen.

Most likely this will only occur when the next substantial recession hits. When it does, Tesla will have to either stop burning cash, downsize, both, or file for bankruptcy protection.

In the meantime, those in it can keep playing greater fool with the stock price.

"However, its volatility and susceptibility to major revisions suggest caution in taking the data for any particular month too seriously." Agreed. Even this short term trend up in core capex seems more a reversion to a norm than a strong trend up and even may indicate a top rather than a sustained rise further.

As many will point out, the current Republican controlled Federal government will undoubtedly support more defense spending which will artificially pump up this aspect of the economy. It does not indicate core growth other than more spending and pushes by the government to get planes and other things sold to foreign governments, although initially may help, will not just artificially spike non-defense numbers but may have a long term inverse reaction as countries take notice and adopt their own protectionist and government driven global sales schemes. It is a dangerous path exactly because it undermines free capitalism the US is dependent upon.

One can not count on other currencies failing to support the dollar. The simple fact is much of the bad news about other currencies is already in the price. The dollars fall is due to the current US outlook where the Federal Reserve is getting queasy about raising rates and its bond dump will fail because it will damage the US economy as much or more than it dries up liquidity.

In the meantime, its me first attitude on trade is forcing China and Europe to increase trade with each other and leaving the US out in the cold faced with increased global competitiveness. All is not well. There will be a new dollar currency rise, however, it requires a drastic change in US policy.

Shale is more of a foil than a swing producer. Given it is currently being run up on bank financing and not profitability, I would not expect it to increase substantially if there was a large jump in demand unless prices went above $80 a barrel. Even then, unless prices stayed steady significantly higher shale producers will still have a hard time paying off their debts let alone justifying even more debt to expand.

All oil is now realizing it is the bankers causing the glut more than anyone else. Blaming Saudi Arabia is naïve. As long as bankers keep financing unprofitable wells and production around the globe the pump and dump at any amount of loss will continue because the financing of it forces pumping after development regardless of the loss.

Sadly, this is not about gold as much as the US dollar that is collapsing to most everything, especially #cryptocurrencies. #MonetaryPolicy in the US has been atrocious and there is growing disinterest in the dollar due to it's geopolitical, potential trade wars, and fiscal policies now too. The run up in stocks is actually partially due to a growing unease about inflation.

I don't see inflation yet, however, if the dollar keeps falling it will happen even if there is zero growth in the US, making stagflation a possibility.

It is hard monetizing this, however with dropping active users is going to make it even harder. Sadly #Google and #Facebook will make it hard for any major new Internet media to generate ad revenue. Be careful picking start ups in this space. $TWTR $FB $GOOGL

A sad state of affairs. The simple fact is TBTF banks want to make money in reflation of interest rates but also are dependent on zirp money. Thus, they don't want much of either one. The only way to support this is to actively prevent strong growth in the US which they are doing a fine job at.

Agreed, it is a similar pattern.