Crude oil peaked in June 2014. As months went by and the price decline picked up momentum, there were growing worries as to if this would force major oil exporters to begin to unwind their Treasury holdings. Obviously this would … Continued
In the past couple of weeks, there have been three important developments on the central-banking front, including the first hike by the Fed in nine years (Chart 1). It is too soon to say with conviction, but are major central … 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
Turns out short interest was indeed a tailwind for stocks in the two weeks ended October 15th. On SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, short interest declined 10.6 percent, to 332.1 million (Chart 1). The ETF rallied 5.6 percent during … Continued
Up until Wednesday last week, the hypothetical trade involving a weekly short put on SPY, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF, was going pretty well. Then came the 2.8-percent jump in the remaining two sessions, and the trade began to bleed. … Continued
In markets, rarely does everything move in sync. Some jig, some jag. Some lead, some lag. That is the nature of the beast. But there is something called divergence, which, if it is so stark it is hard to miss, … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of August 11, 2015. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: How might the renminbi devaluation impact the Fed’s desire to hike rates this year? The devaluation is at least disinflationary as far U.S. … Continued
Markets are acting very fidgety. Emerging ones are no exception. On Monday, off Friday’s intra-day high, VIX, the S&P 500 Volatility Index, dropped 16-percent plus. Yesterday, at one point it was up 17-percent plus. TLT, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury … Continued
Central banks’ increasing role in deciding fate of stocks R between S&P and Shanghai index breaks down due to CB activism N/T direction for U.S. stocks look promising but not M/T, as QE morphine is lacking Did U.S. stocks go … Continued
Chinese stocks have been on fire! From an intra-day low of 36.62 on June 24, FXI (iShares Trust FTSE-Xinhua China 25 Index Fund) shot up nearly 13 percent to 41.30 in a little over a month (by July 29, to … Continued