The pervasive narrative on Wall Street is that the collapse in oil prices will, any second now, restore consumers to their profligate spending ways. In fact, financial pundits have been calling for plunging energy prices to imminently rescue the economy for the past 18 months. Most importantly, these same gurus, who love to espouse the…
In my last few posts, I’ve been sharply criticizing the portfolios delivered by the aggressively marketed and heavily publicized large generalist robo-advising firms. While their web sites are beautiful and incredibly easy to use, I find much to be desired in the portfolios they offer, a situation caused by dogmatic allegiance to quant scripts without much consideration to…
The crowd piled into investment-grade bonds last week as economic worries triggered an exodus out of risky assets. Reviewing the major asset classes for the week just passed through an ETF lens reveals sharply divided results. The safe-haven trade generated handsome gains for several ETFs representing broad measures of the global fixed-income realm for the five trading…
That was a rough first week of February for the US Dollar. After interest rate markets priced out any rate hikes by the Federal Reserve this year, the greenback slid across the board, with Wednesday, February 3, marking the single-largest one day drop for the ICE Dollar Index in history outside of the 1998 and 2008…
The Chinese Year of the Monkey has started today, kicking off a week of public holidays in China during which all trading will be suspended. This vacation may be a nice breather for the struggling economy whose foreign reserves posted losses for the third straight month in January, with the Chinese central bank freeing itself…
Silver is one of my favorite commodities to follow, and for good reason. Silver is one of the unique commodities in the sense that it is not just a commodity that’s used by the public, it’s a safe haven investment. After an in depth analysis into the precious metal, I’m ready to dump my…
Many markets are closed in Asia, and although Tokyo managed posted equity gain, most other markets in the region that were open fell. And the selling pace picked up in Europe. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is off 2.3%, led by information technology, industrials, and consumer discretionary. It is trading at new lows since late-2014. It is the sixth…
EUR/USD Intraday: key resistance at 1.1180. Pivot: 1.1180 Most likely scenario: short positions below 1.1180 with targets @ 1.1070 & 1.1030 in extension. Alternative scenario: above 1.1180 look for further upside with 1.1240 & 1.1310 as targets. Comment: the RSI is bearish and calls for further downside. Gold spot Intraday: the upside prevails. Pivot: 1158.00…
We begin with Friday’s US employment report. The number of jobs created in January was below consensus but the market interpreted the figures as “hawkish” (potentially providing some ammunition for the Federal Reserve to continue raising rates). Short-term rates rose in response (treasuries and rate futures fell). Fed Funds futures declining implies expected fed funds…
Last Thursday when we recounted the story of how Venezuela is now literally flying in paper money (using three dozen cargo Boeing 747s), we wrote that “Venezuela’s hyperinflation, already tentatively estimated at 720%, will likely add on a few (hundred) zeroes by this time next year. It is also quite likely that Venezuela the country, as we…
