Even as U.S. stocks are coming under renewed pressure, there is a battle brewing between newsletter writers and mom-and-pop investors. They are on different wavelengths as far as sentiment goes, feeding bears and bulls, respectively. Investors Intelligence bulls printed 42.2 … Continued
Markets tend to be either risk-on or risk-off. For the most part, anyway. One of the ways market participants can keep a pulse on risk-taking – or a lack thereof – is by simply looking at which sectors are outperforming. … Continued
Last week when the advance report on U.S. durable goods for June was published, new orders for non-defense capital goods ex-aircraft – used as proxy for business capital expenditures – were $68.4 billion, and May was reported as $67.8 billion. … Continued
One look at Chart 1, and it is not hard to imagine the possible repercussions of the collapse in crude oil. The spot West Texas Intermediate crude traded at $107.68 in June last year, dropped to $42.41 in March, rose … Continued
After a three-month 17-percent drop, EEM, the iShares Emerging Markets ETF, looks ripe for an options trade. On May 22, 2013, Ben Bernanke, then-Fed chair, suggested that the Fed would begin tapering back nearly $70 billion in monthly purchases of … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of July 28, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: The following from the FOMC statement drew a lot of attention: “The Committee anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target … Continued
In the second-quarter advance estimate for U.S. GDP released yesterday, one of the things that jumped out was the level of inventories. Private businesses accumulated $124 billion in nominal inventories. In 1Q15, these were $127.3 billion (Chart 1); 1Q15 was … Continued
On Monday, I laid out as to why TLT, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF, may be stuck in limbo in the near-term between 50- and 200-day moving averages and why the latter is likely to act as resistance. … Continued
U.S. small-caps have been through a lot in recent months. Chart 1 says it all. Will that change following Tuesday’s huge reversal? Since the Russell 2000 Index (1224.6) broke the mid-October 2014 trend line toward the end of April, it … Continued
There is a dichotomy between U.S. sales of new and existing homes. This has been preceded by a dichotomy between how their median prices were diverging from each other. June saw existing homes jump to a seasonally adjusted annual rate … Continued