Author Archive: Jeremy Parkinson
US Dollar Weakness Masks Growing Risks
In our previous take on the US dollar in early February, we wrote that the currency was set to remain weak. At the time, ex-US growth was accelerating, while speculator sentiment was only mildly bearish. While dollar bulls have argued that rate hikes should help the currency, we wrote that expectations for monetary tightening were rising […]
Hedge Fund Leverage Plunges Most Since The Financial Crisis
While it may seem like a lifetime ago, it was only in late January that the market was melting up relentlessly with every trading day, as volatility crashed lower and lower to unsustainable single digit levels, sending the S&P into a buying frenzy. It was, as Morgan Stanley pointed out at the time, “euphoria.” Of […]
GBP/USD Throttles Towards 2018 High As USD, EUR/USD Remain In Range
US DOLLAR KICKS OFF THE WEEK BY RUNNING BACK TO SUPPORT Last week saw near-term Dollar weakness continue after the disappointing NFP report from the Friday before. DXY made a late-week attempt to re-test the 90.00 level, but even that fell flat as sellers came in ahead of that potential resistance. As we open up a fresh week, […]
Why It May Finally Be Time To Add Commodities To Your Portfolio
Something strange started happening at the beginning of 2018. For the first time in a long time, investors started asking us what we thought about commodities. For the past several years, any time we talked about commodities, it felt like we were banging our heads against a wall. Investors were disinterested, and who could blame […]
March Retail Sales: Up 0.6% MoM, Better Than Forecast
The Census Bureau’s Advance Retail Sales Report for March was released this morning. Headline sales came in at 0.6% month-over-month to one decimal and was above the Investing.com consensus of 0.4%. Core sales (ex Autos) came in at 0.2% MoM. January and February figures were revised. Here is the introduction from today’s report: Advance estimates of U.S. […]
Converting Directly From A 401(k) To A Roth IRA
Back in the olden days prior to 2008, it used to be against the rules to convert funds directly from a 401(k) plan (or other CODA plan, like a 403(b)) to a Roth IRA. At that time, you were required to do the “conversion two-step” wherein you would first rollover or direct-transfer your funds from […]
Is VLO An Acronym For Volatility?
Oil refiners are riskier than the market but … With the equity market wobbling, investors have been finding refuge, er, returns in an unlikely quarter – the oil sector. No, not integrated behemoths like ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) but independent refiners such as Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO). Over the last 12 months, refiners have outdone the S&P 500 Composite […]
Merck Rises, Bristol-Myers Slides Following Cancer Meeting
Shares of Merck (MRK) are rising this morning, while peer Bristol-Myers (BMY) is sliding, after both companies presented new data on their respective cancer immunotherapy treatments at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting that began over this weekend. MERCK’S KEYTRUDA: In conjunction with the AACR meeting, Merck announced results from KEYNOTE-189, a pivotal […]
Investors Continue To Buy Up GBP In Anticipation Of BOE Rate Rise
EURUSD Non-Commercials increased their net long positions in the Euro last night buying a further 13k contracts to take the total position to 147k contracts. EUR long positioning is now back up to its highest levels of the year as the market readies itself for ECB monetary policy normalization. Recent data has caused some market players […]
Many Attempts And Still No Breakout
The U.S. stock market indexes lost between 0.3% and 0.5% on Friday, following higher opening of the trading session, as investors were worried about Syrian conflict escalation. The S&P 500 index retraced some of last week’s uptrend and it currently trades 7.5% below its January 26 record high of 2,872.87. Both, Dow Jones Industrial Average gained and […]
