Dividends are an important source of income for U.S. households. In 4Q15, they came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $877.1 billion. On a four-quarter rolling average basis, personal dividend income was $868.2 billion in that quarter – … Continued
Is the S&P 500 index (2035.94) resting or struggling at resistance? Either way, the rather lethargic action the past few sessions is not completely out of the ordinary given the move it has had off February 11th lows. From low … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of March 22, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: This could not get any funnier. A week after the FOMC statement, and later Janet Yellen, Fed chair, shifted message from hawkish to … Continued
Last year, with the bull market in its seventh year, a June 19th post sought to find out where several valuation metrics stood. The conclusion was that they were in uncharted territory. With three more quarters of data since, a … Continued
U.S. households are flush with cash – if we look at their bank deposits. The question is, does this represent dry powder for stocks? Households’ currency and deposits including money market fund shares totaled $10.7 trillion in 4Q15, having increased … Continued
Last Friday, spot West Texas Intermediate crude ($41.62) produced what looked like a shooting star near its 200-day moving average ($42.77). Right above lied another layer of resistance at $43.50 going back to January 2015 (Chart 1). A shooting star … Continued
In the latest week, non-commercials cut net longs in gold futures by three percent period-over-period to 169,512 contracts. This was the first weekly reduction in eight weeks (Chart 1). The prior week’s holdings were the highest since February 3rd last … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of March 15, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Major central banks are in a race as to who can ‘shock and awe’ the markets the most. On January 29th, Haruhiko Kuroda, … Continued
Three months. That is all it took for the Fed to do a 360. In the middle of last December, the fed funds rate was raised for the first time in nine years – to still-zero-bound 37 basis points. The … Continued
Back in the middle of December, when the Fed hiked rates for the first time in nine years, the FOMC’s dot plot optimistically forecasted four quarter-point hikes this year. On December 16th – the day the FOMC statement came out … Continued