Gold shows nice price action, just broke past $1,300/ounce, and has room to rally further, particularly if non-commercial futures traders continue to keep the faith and/or the U.S. dollar weakens further. Most recently, the yellow metal bottomed at $1,238.30 on … Continued
Non-commercial futures traders tend to be trend followers, and do a pretty good job of it except at inflection points. Chart 1 plots these traders’ holdings in Russell 2000 mini-index futures (ICE and CME combined) with the cash. The two … Continued
Following futures positions of non-commercials are as of December 26, 2017. 10-year note: Currently net short 83.7k, up 39.4k. No one said a breakout of this significance would be easy. Last week, 10-year yields closed right underneath a three-decade-old descending … Continued
Here is a brief review of period-over-period change in short interest in the December 1-15 period in nine S&P 500 sectors. XLB (SPDR materials ETF) XLB (60.37) continued to grind higher all along the daily upper Bollinger band, rising to … Continued
Ten-year Treasury yields rallied last week to right underneath the top end of a three-decade-old channel. A breakout has to wait for now. The 13-basis-point jump last week was big, and probably took many by surprise. At one point, yields … Continued
Tactical shorts in XLF (SPDR financial sector ETF) have a decision to make. The ETF has essentially gone sideways the past couple of weeks. The bulls are staying put, having defended the 10-day moving average last Friday. Things can always … Continued
Following futures positions of non-commercials are as of December 19, 2017. 10-year note: Currently net short 44.2k, down 89k. Is the big one around the corner? The big breakout, that is? Ten-year Treasury yields, at one point at 2.5 percent, … Continued
From the sales point of view, U.S. housing remains way below the bubble highs of a decade ago, but several other metrics have pushed into record territory. November’s existing home sales were published this week. They were up 5.6 percent … Continued
Driven by tax-cut optimism and favorable seasonality, trader/investor sentiment is giddy, but small-caps are not getting their fair share. The latest Investors Intelligence numbers will be out later today, but as of last week, bulls have been 60 percent or … Continued
XLF shorts who are slightly underwater can use options to repair the damage. Hypothetically last Thursday, XLF ($28.06) was shorted intraday at $27.96 ($27.84 adjusted for dividends). Here was the thought process. The ETF remains overbought on nearly all timeframe. … Continued