The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of November 17, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Hawks are in, doves are out. At least that is how markets are beginning to bet on the odds of an interest-rate hike … Continued
Two-year Treasury yields – supposedly the most sensitive to Fed policy – are acting as if they are beginning to price in a December hike. On October 14th, the two-year Treasury bill yielded 0.57 percent; by November 6th, the yield … Continued
Gold bugs should be wishing the U.S. government begins to run larger deficits. There are tons of reasons why the yellow metal has been languishing since it peaked in September 2011, but it turns out it does correlate negatively with … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of November 10, 2015. Change is week-over-week. (Due to Veterans Day, a Federal holiday, last week, the CFTC released numbers on Monday.) 10-year note: “Muted global economic growth will not support a … Continued
Stanley Fischer, Federal Reserve vice chair, last week stated that U.S. inflation should rebound next year. As things stand now, government data do not show much inflation. In September, consumer prices, measured by the consumer price index, were unchanged in … Continued
One of the knocks on the rally that began on September 29th is that it is primarily led by large-caps. From that low through most recent highs, the S&P 500 large cap index rallied 13.1 percent, and the Nasdaq 100 … Continued
U.S. small-caps suddenly came to life last week, and shorts have a decision to make. The Russell 2000 small cap index was up 3.3 percent last week (Chart 1), and IWM, the iShares Russell 2000 ETF, up 3.4 percent. In … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of November 3, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Three prominent Fed officials tried to convince the markets this week that December was in play in earnest. Testifying before the House Financial … Continued
The importance of consumers in the U.S. economy cannot be stressed enough. Real personal consumption expenditures (PCE) accounted for 68.6 percent of gross domestic product in the third quarter. Five decades ago, PCE’s share was nine points lower. Put another … Continued
In the past month, as U.S. stocks persistently climbed to high altitudes, air has progressively gotten thinner as far as shorts are concerned. With that said, the action last Friday raises the odds that the latter is about to get … Continued