Talking Points: UK inflation slips lower than expected but wage pressures build. Bank of England’s Carney gives nothing away. UK Q1 GDP is released at the end of the week. Fundamental Forecast for GBP: Neutral We remain neutral on GBP in the short-term but believe that the long-term uptrend in Sterling remains in place and offers potential…
Earlier this week I highlighted how the market can be influenced by the actions of a few big components of ETFs. On Friday AAPL fell hard. The media will blame it on an analyst downgrade, and fears of slowing sales in China, but that’s only the catalyst that explain why it fell. It doesn’t explain why it…
It seems the U.S. dollar index (USD) has stopped going down. Since careening to its lows in January, the U.S. dollar has bounced up and down through a well-defined range. It is starting to look like the U.S. dollar index (USD) has stopped going down. Source: Stockcharts.com The U.S. dollar gained each of the last 4…
The following three graphs show the percentages gained/lost for commodities for: 2018 (Oil and Gasoline have been the big winners), the month of April (Copper and Silver have joined Oil and Gasoline as the biggest gainers),and the past week (Silver and Copper have gained the most, followed by Oil and Gasoline). The following 1-year and 2-month charts of these commodities show their price relative to their 50-day MA, as well as their prior swing highs/lows, all of which…
The petroyuan has launched. Let’s investigate its success or lack thereof, primarily the latter. Economist and book author Daniel Lacalle pretty much sees things the way I do regarding the petroyuan hype. Lacalle compiled some amusing stats in his post on the Petroyuan’s Lacklustre Birth. Crash at Birth Every time I read that the yuan…
The latter part of this week was interesting to the extent the resurgence of the inflation narrative seemed to be at least partially responsible for a (probably fleeting) reversal of the previously inexorable flattening of the curve. 2s10s steepened for three straight sessions to close the week, rising from a mere 41bp on Wednesday –…
Natural gas had a volatile week. Friday closed at previous week’s levels and buying volumes haven’t picked up and winter withdrawals weren’t that large. We are still selling rallies, therefore, we are looking for opportunity in the 2.80 or 2.90 level. At this point we do not want to buy this market, not unless…
A recent article on the predictive abilities yield curves (Shrager/Quartz) includes a nifty interactive which allows you to look at yield curves over time. Below, I do a snapshot comparison, across the world. Figure 1: Ten year-three month term spread (blue bars), as of 9 July 2016. China observation is Five year-three month term spread. Euro ten year…
The fact that the Zacks Airline industry declined 2.5% in the first quarter of the year highlights the fact the sector is not bereft of headwinds, despite positives such as increasing financial prosperity and the new tax law. Let’s take a look at the factors responsible for the disappointing price performance. Weather-Related Disruptions Rule Stocks in the…
