Of late, there is a spring in small-caps’ step. Can it be sustained? In August, the Russell 2000 small cap index (1239.91) jumped 1.6 percent, even as the S&P 500 large cap index inched down 0.1 percent and the Dow … Continued
Jackson Hole came and went. At the annual confab, Janet Yellen, Fed chair, last Friday seemed to agree with preceding hawkish messages from three prominent FOMC members – Stanley Fischer, vice-chair, William Dudley, New York Fed president, and John Williams, … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 23, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: In the Greenspan era, traders did not have to deal with the kind of mixed messages they do today. Back then, the message … Continued
Short squeeze played a big role in the equity rally since the February lows this year. Charts 1 and 2 are proof. Since the February 11th bottom through the all-time high this Tuesday, the Nasdaq composite rallied just north of … Continued
That the green line in Chart 1 is increasingly taking the form of a coiled spring is non-debatable. That the longer it stays compressed in oversold territory, the higher the odds of a spike higher is non-debatable. What is debatable … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 16, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: One more prominent central banker this week seemed to throw his hands up in the air. John Williams, San Francisco Fed president, in … Continued
Following up on Tuesday’s blog, here is some additional food of thought on XLY, the SPDR consumer discretionary ETF. Three sessions ago, it arguably broke out of a five-week congestion; the ETF rose to a new intra-day high of $82.38, … Continued
XLY, the SPDR consumer discretionary ETF, acts well. It just broke out to a new high, as did its top three holdings – Amazon (AMZN), Home Depot (HD), and Comcast Corporation (CMCSA). These three make up 12.7 percent, 7.3 percent … Continued
To say that stocks have diverged from a whole host of things ranging from earnings to Treasury bonds to crude oil to economic data is an understatement. This is not some new phenomenon … has been going on for a … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 9, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Are we beginning to see a chink in central bankers’ armor? Major central banks responded to the financial crisis by aggressively deploying both … Continued