In this week’s MacroVoices podcast, Erik Townsend and Joe McMonigle, former chief of staff at the US Department of Energy, discuss the state of the global energy market, and OPEC’s rapidly diminishing ability to control oil prices. McMonigle believes investors will be hearing more jawboning from the Saudis, OPEC’s de-facto leader, over the next two weeks as they try to marshal support for extending the cartel’s production-cut agreement past a March 2018 deadline. Of course, anyone who’s been paying attention knows the cuts have done little to alleviate supply imbalances that have weighed on oil prices for years. In a...
A month ago, Trulia published an article on the potential for renting out the spare rooms of Baby Boomers to millennials called “Boom-mates: How Empty Nesters Could Help Ease a Housing Shortage.” It was an interesting twist on the concept of multi-generational housing that generated a lot of related headlines. I took interest in the article because it looked like an idea that could provide yet one more counter to the doomsday concept of the “senior sell-off.” The senior sell-off is a demographic and market moment where aging boomers can no longer maintain their over-sized homes and are forced to sell their homes essentially en masse. ...
There was a moment in Friday’s trading session for Gold wherein we said, “Oh no, here we again go, price losing control”. Here ’tis below (left arrow) in the sudden spate of nervousness leading into Federal Reserve Chair Yellen’s Wyoming remarks, wherein rather than talk rates, she assured us of the financial system’s safe state. From our view, Gold didn’t buy that a bit, and thus, as you can see, regained control. (When European Central Bank President Draghi later spoke well into the night by EuroTime, most traders there were into the weekend’s imbibing, albeit the Euro did press on to highs ...
You hear a lot in the marketplace about “buying the dip”. With the market continuing to sit near record high levels, the definition of what qualifies as a dip has grown narrower. Traders used to wait for the markets to drop at least 5%, and preferably more, before looking to pick up some bargains. Nowadays, a 1-2% move has the buyers coming out. There haven’t been many traditional “buy the dip” opportunities lately, but we may see one in the coming month. We’re coming up on that time of year again when Congress needs to agree on a federal budget. The current fiscal year expires on September 30th allowing about a month for a deal t...
Fundamental Forecast for the US Dollar: Neutral US Dollar avoided outright breakdown on Yellen’s Jackson Hole speech Gold prices also held their range, hinting Fed rate hike bets remain alive All eyes now turn to payrolls, PCE inflation and revised GDP statistics The US Dollar spent most of last week in wait-and-see mode as markets braced for a speech from Fed Chair Janet Yellen at the US central bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The gathering has frequently served as the venue to unveil major turns in monetary policy. Traders speculated that Yellen might use the occasion to set the stage for “quantitative tightening...
We have the biggest data calendar of the year, climaxing with the employment report. It is right before the Labor Day weekend. It is a natural setup for politicians and pundits alike. Expect many to be asking: How Can We Create More Jobs and Better Pay? Last Week Recap My expectation that last week would focus on the state of the economic policy agenda was pretty accurate. While the overall weekly change in the market was modest, the moves came from an evaluation of the agenda potential. Monday saw an expectation of more Congressional cooperation. Tuesday night’s campaign-style speech brought fears of a government shutdown. The economic ann...
The good news is: The breadth indicators firmed up pretty nicely last week. The Negatives We saw a nice rally last week with the secondaries outperforming the blue chips and new lows dropping to non-threatening levels. The rally was consistent with the seasonal pattern which begins to deteriorate in the coming week. The first chart covers the past 6 months showing the Nasdaq composite (OTC) in blue and a 10% trend (19 day EMA) of Nasdaq new highs (OTC NH) in green. Dashed vertical lines have been drawn on the 1st trading day of each month. New highs picked up a bit last week, but not enough to turn this indicator upward. The next chart is...
The auto boom, one of the key components propping up consumer spending, has come to an end. Dealers are wildly overweight SUVs just as the market turned. As auto-industry growth stalls and family sedans go the way of the flip phone, one silver lining had been the trusty “crossover” SUV. Sales in the category boomed amid lower gasoline prices and higher demand for spacious wagons with all-wheel drive. But more clouds seem to be gathering as the summer car-selling season comes to an end. Incentives on SUVs are skyrocketing amid rising inventories, a trend that promises to dent the fat profits the segment has long returned. Auto makers repor...
Reading the supply and demand points of a ticker can be done. It looks like silver is making a comeback. (Running length 00:07:16) Why you should care about silver? Here are two subjects to research. 1) Internet of things 2) Silver wire....
Real Vision’s Grant Williams believes that the 76 million retiring Baby Boomers will trigger a major pension crisis. “With that potentially bad situation we could face,” the seasoned asset manager and co-founder of Real Vision TV said in a recent extended Metal Masters interview, “holding physical metal, somewhere safe, somewhere outside the banking system, is just a sensible precaution to take.” His outlook has changed drastically since he started his first job trading Japanese markets in 1986: “What I walked into at that time was one of the greatest bull market bubbles the world had ever seen, in the Japanese equity marke...