There was a bit of good news in pending home sales on Monday. The index jumped 3.5 percent month-over-month in February to 109.1 (Chart 1). This was the sharpest sequential increase in a year. Pending home sales are based on … 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 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
On February 11th, spot gold closed up 4.1 percent to $1,263.9/ounce, surging intra-day as much as 5.6 percent (blue arrow in Chart 1). It was a high-volume session. A healthy $535 million moved into GLD, the SPDR gold ETF, in … Continued
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” The above remark is often attributed to John Maynard Keynes, the British economist, although some dispute it. Regardless who said it, it is a nice quote. More … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of March 8, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: The FOMC meets next week, and it is a given. They will stand pat on interest rate, but the dot plot likely sees … Continued