EC Was It Worth It?
On the grand scene of financial innovations, the exchange-traded fund was fairly innocuous at first. It took a good 15 years of slow realization for people to figure out how disruptive they would ultimately be. “Exchange-traded fund” isn’t even a very good name, since closed-end funds were also exchange-traded. And the ETF wrapper still isn’t […]
Impressive Data On The Chinese Demand
Today the Shanghai Gold Exchange (the SGE) released the September data on the gold and silver demand. In my opinion, the Chinese demand for gold and silver is very strong. Here are the appropriate charts: Gold: …and silver: Gold figures are especially impressive – since the beginning of 2017 the Chinese have withdrawn 1.5 thousand tons […]
U.S. Producer Prices Jump In September
Producer prices in the U.S. rose higher in September following the biggest increase in gasoline price in more than two years. The producer price index increased by 0.4 percent in September, up from an increase of 0.2 percent in August, the Labor Department said on Thursday. On a yearly basis, producer prices rose 2.6 percent, […]
After Solid Third Quarter, Stock Markets Look Ahead To Promising Q4
July-September was another record-breaking quarter for Wall Street, as investors rallied behind upbeat corporate earnings and expectations of tax reform under the Trump administration. European markets in September also rung up their best month of 2017, a sign that the bull market still had legs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rounded out its eighth consecutive […]
Why The U.S. Exports Oil
U.S. crude oil exports are surging, even as we continue to import millions of barrels per day. The reasons for that come down to logistics and refinery economics. In the years leading up to the shale oil boom, crude oil exports from the U.S. were nearly nonexistent. There were two reasons for that. First, following […]
Out Of Sync
I have written many times about the tendency for the market to follow various seasonal patterns. Frankly, it is eerie how often the S&P 500 winds up mirroring these historical cycles. To be sure, the market doesn’t always follow the seasonal patterns and therefore, it doesn’t pay to trade heavily on what history suggests may […]
The Fed Is About To Cause A Recession
And now back to your regularly scheduled recession predictions. Last month, the 5s30s was on everyone’s radar screen when it dropped below 91.6bp for the first time since December 2007. A couple of fleeting steepening episodes notwithstanding, things haven’t really changed since. Well now, with the Fed looking hell-bent on sticking to their near-term rate path […]
Bullish Sentiment Approaching 40%
This week’s sentiment survey from AAII showed an increase in bullish sentiment back near 40% and back near the recent high of 41.29% from mid-September. While 40% is hardly an extreme reading by any stretch of the imagination, this year there have only been four weeks where bullish sentiment actually topped 40%. With 40% being hard enough, an […]
Political Focus Shifting In Europe
There was a huge sigh of relief among investors when it became clear that the populist-nationalist wave that ostensibly led to Brexit and Trump’s election was not going to sweep through Europe. The euro gapped higher on April 24, and it has not looked back. We have suggested that with the outcome of the German election, European politics shift from tailwind to headwind. […]
October 2017 Initial Unemployment Claims Rolling Average Improves Again
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria impacted this week’s claims – but significantly less than previous weeks. The market expectations for weekly initial unemployment claims (from Bloomberg / Econoday) were 250 K to 275 K (consensus 252,000), and the Department of Labor reported 243,000 new claims. The more important (because of the volatility in the weekly reported […]
