Last week, the euro rallied two percent. There was some positive news on the fundamental front. Eurozone bank lending grew 1.1 percent year-over-year in March, slightly faster than February’s one-percent growth. Eurozone GDP expanded 0.6 percent in 1Q16 – the … Continued
The S&P 500 large cap index lost 1.3 percent last week. Intra-day, off the April 20th high through last Friday’s low, it is now down 2.8 percent. The index retreated after unsuccessfully trying to break out of a declining trend … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of April 26, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Two different central-bank meetings, and two different market reactions this week. Haruhiko Kuroda, Bank of Japan governor, has a habit of surprising the … Continued
In the aggregate, tech earnings have been a disappointment in the current earnings season. With the exception of FB (Facebook), from Apple (AAPL) to Alphabet (GOOGL) to IBM (IBM) to Netflix (NFLX), 1Q16 results have left a bad taste in … Continued
Yet another fortnight and yet another show of strength by equity bulls. During the March 31st-April 15th period, the S&P 500 large cap index rallied one percent, the NYSE composite 1.5 percent and the Nasdaq composite 1.4 percent, among others. … Continued
March sales of existing and new homes were a mixed bag, with the former up 5.1 percent month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.33 million units, and the latter down 1.5 percent m/m to 511,000 units. Post-bubble, sales … Continued
The April 21st European Central Bank (ECB) governing council meeting was anti-climactic. The deposit rate on lenders’ reserves parked at the central bank was maintained at minus 0.4 percent. As well, Mario Draghi, ECB president, continued his oft-repeated ‘all policy … Continued
With five sessions to go in April, the Nasdaq 100 index (4474.19) is down 0.2 percent, while the Russell 2000 small cap index (1146.69) is up 2.9 percent. Last week made a big difference, as the former was down 1.5 … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of April 19, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: That this is even being discussed in the press and among economists is a sign of how insane things have gotten in central … Continued
On Wednesday, spot VIX (13.95) did something it had not done in a while. It dropped below 13, to 12.50, before reversing with a hammer candle (Chart 1). The last time it had a sub-13 session was on October 28th … Continued