We find it amusing how much digital ink continues to be spilled to predict i) when the ECB will end its QE and ii) whether it will hike before or after it finally stops purchasing government and corporate bonds, or funnier yet, start selling them. The reason for that is that over the past 4…
Streak Of 9 Positive Quarters Is Snapped There were many record winning streaks snapped by the correction in February. With the weakness in March combined with the February decline, the market had its first down quarter since 2015 as the S&P 500 fell 1.22%. The Wall Street phrase “the easy money has been made” is…
Oil prices have been erasing the gains from last week, as weekly U.S. shale production witnessed a sharp increase. Moreover, weakness in the financial markets owing to trade fears and the tech sector’s headwinds are exerting pressure on oil prices as investors became more risk averse. OPEC’s fears came true. Amid the rally in crude…
Here are the currencies and commodities that do well or poorly in April, historically. Statistics include how often the prices rise or fall, and by how much, on average. Forex Seasonality For April The US Dollar Index (DX) has fallen in 14 of the last 20 years (70%), dropping an average of 0.8% in April. The PowerShares US…
For the last five years the S&P 500 has been dancing up its ascending 200-day moving average (200-DMA), bouncing higher repeatedly whenever the dip-buyers did their thing. Only twice did the index actually break below this seeming Maginot Line: In August 2015, after the China stock crash, and in February 2016, when the shale patch/energy sector hit the wall….
It was a wild week for stocks — a seemingly fitting end to what has been a wild quarter overall. U.S. equities jumped Monday when it appeared fears of a trade war with China may have been overblown. This was followed by a sharp reversal Tuesday, with mega cap technology stocks leading the decline, and…
The Longer-Term Outlook The Packaging index is super-sensitive to the ups and downs of the stock market. It shows the market pullbacks very nicely, and these dips along with the stochastic lows have been good buying opportunities. Based on this chart, I would expect a rally in the general market. Very few stocks have been…
For much of 2017, hedge funds – most of which again underperformed both their benchmark and the broader market – complained that they were not generating alpha for one reason: there was no volatility. Well, they got their wish in spades last month when after months of record low, single-digit VIX, equity vol exploded resulting in a 3.9%…
January 2018 marked the best start to a year for Wall Street in more than three decades, with a series of record highs. This is primarily thanks to an uptick in economies around the world, strong corporate earnings, booming trade, the new tax legislation, jump in oil prices, and a weak dollar (read: Market at New…
General Electric (GE) was the worst performer in the Dow, with selling all fall, and being the worst again this quarter. It was a dud in the S&P 500 as well, even though the stock saw a late-March surge on hopes that Warren Buffett may buy a stake in the company. Yet while GE bulls are few and…
