Traditional Markets Friday’s Jobs report was a doozy. The good news is that the US unemployment rate dropped to 3.9%, its lowest reading in 18 years. The not so great news was that wage growth came in a full percentage point less than expected. As we discussed in Friday’s update, a weaker than expected wage growth figure is actually good…
Crude Oil is one of the most important commodity in the world. It powers everything that we use every day. Without oil, big agricultural producers would not be able to produce the food we eat in large scale. Local and international transport would be impossible. Crude oil is produced by a small group of countries,…
Starbucks (SBUX) announced it will form a global coffee alliance with Nestle (NSRGY) to “accelerate and grow the global reach of Starbucks brands in Consumer Packaged Goods and Food service.” It added, “With a shared commitment to ethical and sustainable sourcing of coffee, this alliance will transform, expand and elevate both the at-home and away-from-home…
China may release a softer trade data this week, short AUD/USD? Data shows slacks remain in US labor market despite drop in unemployment rate US unemployment rate has fallen below 4% for first time since Bill Clinton era. However, we do not expect Fed to alter its monetary policy for this new development. The jobless…
WTI Crude Oil The WTI Crude Oil market initially fell during the session on Friday, but then exploded to the upside, slamming into the $70 level. This is an area that should be resistive due to the large, round, psychological significance of the number, but also the previous resistance that we had seen for a…
The S&P 500 (Index: INX) saw some major intraday swings during the first week of May 2018, with the combination of Thursday, 3 May 2018 and Friday 4 May 2018 combining to take the index on the wildest ride of the week. Tracking each day’s closing value of the S&P 500, what we find is that…
Unless we are headed into a hyper-inflationary period such as that we saw in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. Inflation and Interest Rates This is a nuanced situation. Most people writing about inflation and rates or programming computers that implement trading programs to react to news that might change their trajectory do not get the…
The EUR/USD starts the new week with new falls amid weak euro-zone figures. After a not-so-great US Non-Farm Payrolls report, the Dollar bulls may be losing steam. The technical picture remains bearish with a touch of oversold conditions. The EUR/USD started the first full week of May by resuming its falls, trading around $1.1930. While…
After a stormy winter for the broad market and clean energy stocks, including my picks, March and April brought relative calm. Better yet, my model portfolio has rebounded from its February lows, although its benchmarks (SDY for the broad market of income stocks and YLCO for clean energy income stocks) have mostly been treading water. The gains were led by two…
Whatever happened to that whole “reflation” trade theme that everyone seemed to be talking about a year ago? Well, judging by some of the charts in this blog, it looks like the reflation theme is still very much well and alive, with traders displaying extreme confidence in the reflationary outlook. It also seems as though…
