U.S. stocks began 2016 on the wrong foot. That is an understatement. In fact, major indices peaked intra-day on December 29th (2015). Using that high, the S&P 500 large cap index through the intra-day low on January 20th lost 13 … Continued
Gold bugs may need to step up to the plate. Off the December 3rd intra-day low of $1045.4 through February 11th spike high of $1263.9, spot gold surged 21 percent in just over two months. Not bad for an asset … Continued
SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, has essentially gone sideways since January 20th. That was the first low of the year after a 12-session, 11-percent waterfall drop. A subsequent eight-session rally had the ETF rally to $194.58, before it again … Continued
Spot gold this week took care of not one but two crucial resistance. First, it broke out of a descending trend line going back to April 2013. That trend line persistently repelled gold’s rally attempts, the most recent of which … Continued
The top five weights in QQQ, the Nasdaq 100 ETF, are: Apple (AAPL), 11.4 percent; Alphabet (GOOGL, formerly Google), 9.2 percent (both A and C); Microsoft (MSFT), 8.5 percent; Amazon (AMZN), 5.8 percent; and Facebook (FB), 4.5 percent. The tech-heavy … 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
Stocks are rallying. In fact, off the intra-day low last week, the S&P 500 index (1906.9) is already up 5.2 percent. Last Wednesday’s hammer reversal on the index looks similar to the ones on October 15, 2014 and August 24, … 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
“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
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of December 29, 2015. Change is week-over-week. (Due to New Year’s Day last week, the CFTC released numbers on Monday, instead of last Friday.) 10-year note: ‘Will it or wouldn’t it?’ was … Continued