Much ado about nothing! Really. A lot happened in the second half of June. The 1.3-percent rally in the S&P 500 large cap index between June 15th and 30th belies the crazy roller-coaster ride those two weeks went through. First, … Continued
As far as U.S. stocks were concerned, Brexit was just a bad dream. A footnote, so to speak. On the S&P 500 large cap index, the intra-day high of 2113.32 in the session before Brexit hit stands, but last Friday’s … Continued
Equity bulls put the foot down where they could possibly have. Support at 1990 on the S&P 500 large cap index was defended on Monday (Chart 1). This followed a post-Brexit 5.3-percent dive in just a couple of sessions. Using … Continued
Since spot West Texas Intermediate crude bottomed intra-day at $26.05/barrel on February 11th and began to rally, resistance points have fallen one after another. First went $34-$35, then $40, followed by $42-$43 and then $47-$48 (Chart 1), rallying past both … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of June 7, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: The Bank of Korea on Thursday eased its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to a record low 1.25 percent. The move … Continued
Spot gold potentially had an important session on Tuesday. Since the May 2nd high of $1,306/ounce through Tuesday’s hammer low, the metal gave back eight percent, in the process losing its now-declining 50-day moving average. The Tuesday low likely came … Continued
U.S. equities had a powerful session on Tuesday, followed by another good session on Wednesday. Volume could have been a little better on major U.S. indices but price spoke loud and clear. The Nasdaq 100 surged 2.1 percent on Tuesday, … Continued
The mid-May short interest was out yesterday, and some subtle shift in sentiment was noticeable. First off, in the aggregate, short interest rose. In fact, on both the NYSE composite and the Nasdaq composite, this was the first period-over-period increase … Continued
XLP, the SPDR consumer staples ETF, just made a new all-time high on May 10th before backing off, and coming down hard. In contrast, most major U.S. indices peaked last year, and some even earlier, like the Dow Transports, which … Continued
One look at Chart 1 and it is easy to see what a squeeze can do to short interest. In the two weeks ended January 29th, short interest on XLF, the SPDR financial ETF, peaked at 146.8 million. The ETF … Continued