Our GDP-based recession indicator index is now available from FRED, the database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Source: available from FRED. One use of this series is for academic research where it is important to specify predictive relations based on what market participants could have actually known at the time. The recession dates established by…
Demand for gold will remain strong in the years to come given the demand for jewelry, bars and coins as well as its safe-haven appeal. Yet the gold mining industry is saddled with a number of headwinds. Below, we discuss some of the key challenges and what investors in the sector can look forward to…
Gold prices soared for a fourth consecutive week with the precious metal rallying more than 5% to trade at 1247 on Thursday evening in New York. The advance to fresh yearly highs comes amid the continued rout in global equity markets with weakness in the dollar & falling treasury yields driving demand for the perceived safety…
Yesterday, we laid out what according to Citi’s Matt King, one of the most insightful and respected credit analysts in the world, is most surprising about the ongoing market selloff: the odd interplay between some asset classes which are declining in an orderly, almost boring fashion, and other assets which have crossed into and beyond a state…
What’s down with banks? Stock prices for the industry have fallen much more than the overall stock market index. The KBW bank index has dropped about 20 percent (as this is being written) from the end of last year, though the S&P 500 is only down nine percent. Banks have been hit worse because of dashed expectations for a…
During the day on Monday, we get almost nothing as far as announcements are concerned. We do have a speech by the European Central Bank president, but beyond that there probably won’t be too much noise in the markets. Natural gas falling The natural gas market initially tried to rally during the day but turned…
The world’s second largest economy could not be blamed for the recent rout as it was on holiday. And now it’s back. Can China provide the stimulus that other countries failed to deliver? We also have GDP from Japan, wages from the UK and inflation in the US: the big focus is on the Fed…
This year financial markets have been in Risk Off mode, and as a result the USD/JPY carry trade has reversed considerably in 2016. Just how low can we go in this reversal? At certain points a market is broken, and fair value considerations go out the window.
Last week we had a Panic Cycle in Gold and a Directional Change. Both performed on target. As we have stated previously, the Directional Change can be by itself a very fascinating tool. The Directional Change can at times be the beginning of a breakout to a new trading level (major thrust) in one directions which the market making a break to a…
While macro concerns and falling commodity prices have plagued the market in recent days, companies must overcome these challenges and focus on returning value to shareholders. Here’s what to watch for this week in earnings reports from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), Deere & Company (NYSE:DE), and Virgin America Inc (NASDAQ:VA). Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Wal-Mart is set to release Q4:2015 earnings on Thursday, February…
