Bulls put foot down on major US equity indices last week. They have the ball near term. Shorts with medium-term focus can sell weekly puts to raise the short price. The greenback acts strong. The US dollar index (95.98) hit … Continued
Following futures positions of non-commercials are as of August 14, 2018. 10-year note: Currently net short 698.2k, up 111.9k. In the 12 months to July, the US Treasury issued $544.1 billion in notes and bonds. A year ago, issuance totaled … Continued
Corporate bond issuance continues to surprise on the downside. While some technical factors could be responsible for this, the deceleration comes amidst strong GDP growth. In July, US corporations issued $61 billion in total, made up of $52.5 billion in … Continued
Small-caps have rallied nicely year-to-date. Supposedly, they benefit the most from last December’s tax cuts and are also considered insulated from negative effects of a trade war. They now sit at critical technical juncture. Over the last eight weeks, the … Continued
SPY last week was rejected at channel resistance, coming up $0.63 short of surpassing the all-time high of $286.63 reached January 26. The path of least resistance is down. A covered put might help. There are interesting dynamics at play … Continued
Following futures positions of non-commercials are as of August 7, 2018. 10-year note: Currently net short 586.3k, down 3.8k. The 10-year Treasury yield (2.86 percent) continues to work on a potentially bearish head-and-shoulders formation. On August 1, it hit 3.02 … Continued
Here is a brief review of period-over-period change in short interest in the July 16-31 period in nine S&P 500 sectors. XLB (SPDR materials ETF) XLB ($59.54) bulls continued to defend a rising trend line from early April. At the … Continued
Arguably, US stocks are giving off some signs of fatigue. The S&P 500 large cap index (2840.35) is still below its late-January high of 2872.87. The Nasdaq 100 index (7395.49) in the week before was rejected at six-month-old channel resistance; … Continued
Following futures positions of non-commercials are as of July 31, 2018. 10-year note: Currently net short 590.1k, up 80.6k. The first paragraph of this week’s FOMC statement contains the word “strong” twice and “strongly” once in describing the economy. This … Continued
The top five in the Nasdaq 100 are done reporting 2Q. They have had their post-earnings reaction – mostly positive. This is occurring even as the index just got repelled at six-month channel resistance. If bulls do not put their … Continued