Spot Gold At A Crossroads?
Gold bugs may need to step up to the plate. Off the December 3rd intra-day low of $1045.4 through February 11th spike high of $1263.9, spot gold surged 21 percent in just over two months. Not bad for an asset … Continued
2016 Likely 1st Down Year In Corporate Debt Issuance Since 2011 — Buyback Repercussions
Among U.S. corporates last year, issuance of high-yield bonds fell for the second straight year, to $261 billion. The peak was reached in 2013 at $334 billion, followed by $311 billion in 2014 (Chart 1). Investment-grade as well as total … Continued
SPY Weekly Short Put
SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, has essentially gone sideways since January 20th. That was the first low of the year after a 12-session, 11-percent waterfall drop. A subsequent eight-session rally had the ETF rally to $194.58, before it again … Continued
CoT: Peek Into Future Through Futures
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of February 9, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: On June 5, 2014, the ECB cut the deposit rate for the euro zone’s commercial banks to minus 0.1 percent from zero. It … Continued
Spot Gold Breaks Out, Watching Futures For Future Clues
Spot gold this week took care of not one but two crucial resistance. First, it broke out of a descending trend line going back to April 2013. That trend line persistently repelled gold’s rally attempts, the most recent of which … Continued
Any Message In How XLE Shorts Are Positioned?
The stock market got off on the wrong foot this year… which is probably an understatement. Using the January 20th intra-day low, the S&P 500 large cap index lost nine percent in 12 sessions, the S&P 400 mid-cap index 13.1 … Continued
Deleveraging, What Deleveraging?
Both student and motor-vehicle loans made a fresh new high in 4Q15. That is no news. Both these loans have been trending higher in the current cycle. When Great Recession ended, student loans were $710.9 billion. At the end of … Continued
Household Formation Stalls Even As Unemployment Claims Trough
U.S. household formation seems to be stalling. Again. Last year, there were 117,707 households in December, 117,342 in April, and 117,816 in October. When Great Recession ended, there were 110,284 households in June 2009, and grew steadily, to 114,720 in … Continued
Bulls And Bears Cite Data To Suit Own Biases, Even As Markets Telling Us To Be Cautious
The chart below has fodder for both bulls and bears. At least going back to the last three decades – encompassing three recessions, including Great Recession – there have been five occasions in which the spot West Texas Intermediate crude … Continued
CoT: Peek Into Future Through Futures
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of February 2, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: There you go! Again. Less than three months after instituting the first rate hike in nine years, Fed officials are behaving as if … Continued