One look at Chart 1 and it is easy to see what a squeeze can do to short interest. In the two weeks ended January 29th, short interest on XLF, the SPDR financial ETF, peaked at 146.8 million. The ETF … Continued
There is a lot of excitement among non-commercial futures traders about spot gold’s prospects. In the 12 weeks since February 9th through May 3rd, they nearly tripled net longs in gold futures – from 98,428 to 271,648 contracts – to … Continued
From up 30.2 percent between February 11th low and April 21st high to down 7.3 percent since that high, ITB, the iShares U.S. home construction ETF, has had its share of ups and downs. There is likely a crossover in … Continued
After sharp rallies off of February 11th lows, major U.S. indices have hit the wall, with some technical damage to boot. Between February 11th and April 20th, the S&P 500 large cap index rose 16.6 percent. Between February 8th and … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of May 3, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Last week, the Bank of Japan shocked markets by not adding to its stimulus program. The yen jumped 2.4 percent. This week, the … Continued
Today is jobs day. April numbers are due out later this morning. One of the metrics that economists keenly await is average hourly earnings for private-sector employees. The U.S. unemployment rate has dropped all the way to five percent – … Continued
Versus large-caps, small-caps inherently suffer from shorter operational history, less access to capital, lower trading liquidity, lack of support from most mutual funds, lack of familiarity, lack of/less Wall Street research, and what not. Understandably, they are regarded as risky. … Continued
Off February 11th lows through recent highs, U.S. stocks rallied handsomely, ranging from nearly 23 percent on the Russell 2000 small cap index to nearly 17 percent on the S&P 500 large cap index. Probably enough to take care of … Continued
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