After a 13-session, heady rally off June 27th lows, U.S. stocks are beginning to reek of complacency. The question is, is it now time to turn contrarian or things might stay complacent for a little while longer? Take put-to-call ratios. … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of July 12, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: TLT, the iShares 20+ year treasury bond ETF, was punished for a 3.6-percent drop this week. This followed a parabolic rally, particularly after … Continued
Next week’s economic calendar is housing-heavy. Monday brings the NAHB/Wells Fargo housing market index for July, Tuesday housing starts for June, and Thursday existing home sales for June. Builder sentiment remained stuck at 58 for four months through May, before … Continued
As soon as the June payroll report hit the tape pre-open last Friday, markets heaved a big sigh of relief. Reversing the downwardly revised 11,000 non-farm jobs in May, 287,000 jobs were created in June. The S&P 500 large cap … Continued
Much ado about nothing! Really. A lot happened in the second half of June. The 1.3-percent rally in the S&P 500 large cap index between June 15th and 30th belies the crazy roller-coaster ride those two weeks went through. First, … Continued
The pace of U.S. corporate bond issuance slowed in June. Corporations issued $110.8 billion in non-convertible debt and $3 billion in convertible debt last month. Of non-convertible debt, which is what Chart 1 portrays, investment-grade (IG) was $86.8 billion and … Continued
Table 1 was posted in last Tuesday’s blog. It is apropos to be discussing it again. The table tallies instances of rallies of five percent or above on the S&P 500 over four sessions. Going back six years, there have … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of July 5, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: One can make a cogent argument that U.S. sovereign bonds are in a blow-off phase. Since late May through the Friday high, TLT, … Continued
Are U.S. sovereign bonds in a blow-off phase? Tough to say, but they have had quite a rally. Yields on both 30-year bonds and 10-year notes this week made new all-time lows. Post-Brexit, demand for long bonds from major countries, … Continued
U.S. capex continues to let down. May’s revised figures for new orders for non-defense capital goods ex-aircraft – proxy for business capital expenditures – were published on Tuesday, and there was not much change in the trend. Orders fell 0.5 … Continued