Note: We’ve updated this commentary to include the latest labor force data in this morning’s employment report. Every week we post an update on new unemployment claims shortly after the BLS report is made available. Our focus is the four-week moving average of this rather volatile indicator. The financial press generally takes a fairly simplistic view of the…
EUR/USD traded in a narrow range and suffered further losses. Will it continue falling or just move back up in the same known range? The week features a speech by Draghi, the ECB meeting minutes and more. Here is an outlook for the highlights of this week and an updated technical analysis for EUR/USD. There is further evidence…
The economic calendar is normal, with an emphasis on inflation data and the Fed. The increased intra-day volatility, often driven by overnight comments in China news or a Presidential tweet, has everyone’s attention. Even Fed punditry will take a back seat. With an increased sense of urgency, many will be wondering: has the Trump trade…
In one way or another every investor and trader predicts markets, even though some claim they’re not doing it and others decry the very attempt. Warren Buffett, for instance, famously said that “the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good.” The economist Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, is a…
On March 8th, I finally took profits and sold the rest of my holdings in iPath Bloomberg Cocoa SubTR ETN (NIB). In the past week, NIB came back down to my price and the ETN closed below my selling price to finish the week. I now think the price of cocoa, and thus NIB, has…
Just as it seemed the markets were settling from their fears over escalating trade wars, the flames were fanned to close the week. How will risk trends evolve into the coming week amid regular data flow? US Dollar Forecast: US Dollar Gives Back Gains After NFP: Inflation Numbers on the Horizon The US Dollar started Q2 on…
If someone slipped you a $10,000 check and told you to invest it, what would you do with the money? With no strings attached, there is a wide variety of ways that you could deploy that cash. You could look at it as a one-time windfall that could shore up your personal balance sheet, or…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the first quarter of 2018 down 2.5% year-to-date and down 9.4% from its all-time intraday high of 26,618.71 set on Jan. 26. The eight “Dogs of the Dow” for 2018 ended March with an aggregate loss of 7.5% year-to-date. The Year-To-Date Scorecard For The Eight “Dogs Of The Dow”…
In recent quarters we have exposed the hyperbole of doom and gloom evidence, while expecting a first quarter 2018 double digit stock market correction. We have shown that the stock market margin debt ratio is normal, credit card and mortgage default rates are great, credit spreads, junk bonds, yield curves and inflation risks are calm….
Two weeks back, after explaining what the “hierarchy of vulnerability” for markets will likely be going forward in the event the proximate cause of market turmoil continues to be geopolitical in nature (e.g. trade war jitters), Deutsche Bank’s Aleksandar Kocic outlined how the Powell Fed is attempting to reassert policymaker control over the normalization process….
