Between the January 20th intra-day low of $181.02 and the February 1st high of $194.58, SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, rallied 7.5 percent… in nine sessions. Too much too fast? Probably. That said, this was preceded by a nearly … Continued
To say that energy stocks are back in favor will be an exaggeration, but they have perked up of late. Off the January 20th intra-day low, XLE, the SPDR Energy ETF, has rallied north of 16 percent. That is in … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of January 26, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Two important developments took place this week in central banking. First, the Fed. This week’s FOMC meeting was a non-event. No interest-rate decision … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of January 19, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: The International Monetary Fund lowers – again – its outlook for global economic growth this year. Warning of bumpier rides, especially in the … Continued
U.S. stocks have gone 12 straight sessions without even a sliver of a bounce. About time for a reprieve? Between the December 29th intra-day high and January 15th low, the S&P 500 and Dow Industrials each lost 10.8 percent, the … Continued
Last Friday, the CBOE equity-only put-to-call ratio registered a reading of north of one. This does not occur very often. With this, the 21-day moving average rose to 0.766, not that far away from the September 18th (2015) high of … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of January 12, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: With crude oil tanking the way it has, it is worth taking note that oil does correlate with inflation expectations. Already, the 10-year … Continued
Tech stocks outshone their peers last year. In a year in which indices such as the S&P 500 large-cap index and Dow Industrials were negative – down 0.7 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively – the Nasdaq composite rallied 5.7 percent … Continued
Among several culprits behind the recent sell-off in global stocks, two probably stand out: the yuan and crude oil. Chinese stocks began this week where they left off on Friday, dropping more than five percent on Monday. Last week, the … Continued
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” So says the fictional character Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film Wall Street. Then there is the saying ‘bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.’ The hypothetical buy-write involving … Continued