Initial Claims Say We’re In Something Deeper Than The Tech Or Housing Bubbles
Initial Claims came in at +265K, making it over a year of Initial Claims below the psychologically important 300K threshold. In looking at comparable cycles, one has to go all the way back to the early 1970s to find a similar instance. This isn’t your typical tech bubble. Nor is it your typical housing bubble. […]
Foreigners Dumped More Japanese Stocks This Week Than Ever Before
USD/JPY just had its best week in 2 months, funding bullish momentum and carry trades around the world in the midst of dismal economic data everywhere and tumbling earnings expectations. This “bullish” Yen strength, however, amid China’s biggest weekly devaluation in almost 3 months, wasironically driven by drastic investment outflows – record sales of Japanese stocks by foreigners (sell JPY), and record […]
Bitcoin Market Technical Analysis And Commentary: 2-26-2016
We delve into the technicals of the Bitcoin Market in this video.
Oil Price Optimism May Be Short-Lived
Oil has stayed resilient during the past few weeks, despite occasional risk-off sentiment. Crude prices rose to their highest in three months in early March, at $42.49/barrel for WTI and $42.54/barrel for Brent. This was triggered by a combination of tightening supply, a proposed production freeze and a weaker US dollar. However, the November-December range of […]
Oil And Gas Debt – The Next Moral Hazard
The U.S. energy resurgence has been one of the bright spots of the economic recovery since the Financial Crisis of 2008. Many of the shale plays in Texas financed their growth with cheap debt. Now that oil has fallen from above $100 to sub-$50 many oil drillers are finding it difficult to service that debt. […]
Forex Critical: Sentiment Reaffirmed On The Pound And Australian Dollar
The following data cover the latest from the CFTC’s Commitment of Traders as reported by Oanda from the week of Monday, March 21, 2016. From Oanda: “The Commitments of Traders (COT) is a report issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It aggregates the holdings of participants in the U.S. futures markets (primarily based in Chicago […]
Week In Review: Origin-Centrillion Offers $1.5 Billion For Affymetrix
Deals and Financings Origin Technologies, a US company with deep China connections, has raised its bid to acquire Affymetrix (NSDQ: AFFX), a US microarray company, to $17 per share (see story). Affymetrix responded by postponing a shareholder vote, scheduled for Thursday, on a $14 per share takeover offer from scientific instruments company Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE: […]
Is The Best Yet To Come For Silver?
Silver had a great start to the year 2016. In December of 2015, the precious metal was trading at just over $12 per ounce. However, as the global stock market fell in the beginning of this year, safe haven investors started to flock toward gold and silver, sending the price of precious metals soaring. As […]
Speculative Yen Longs Remain Near Record Levels
The most extreme speculative positioning, judging from the futures market is the long yen position. The bulls added another 3.4k contracts, lifting the gross long position to 82.8k contracts. The record was set in 2008 at 94.7k contracts. The gross short position was trimmed by 4.5k contracts, leaving 29.5k. It is the smallest gross short position […]
Chasing Headlines
It’s been an amazing start to the year. First the market cratered on slowing China economic concerns, domestic recessionary fears, deteriorating oil prices, and negative interest rates abroad. In response to all these worries (and others), stocks dove more than -11% (S&P 500 Index) in January, before settling down. Subsequently, the market has made a […]
