The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) accomplished a major milestone in the past week: it fully reversed its entire post-election loss in what looks like a major breakout. Yet one more “Trump effect” put to rest. Source: StockCharts.com Speculators have been rushing back to gold likely in anticipation of these much higher prices. Speculators have rushed to re-accumulate net long contracts since the last trough in mid-July. Source: Oanda’s CFTC’s Commitments of Traders Since 2008, here are the years where a similar rise from a July trough or significant dip have occurred: 2010 (to an October peak), 2012 (to an October peak), 2013 (to an October...
Rex Nutting on MarketWatch offers this opinion: The jobs report shows a spike in auto jobs — and that doesn’t pass the smell test. Motor Vehicle Production Auto Hiring Manufacturing payrolls increased by 36,000 in August, three times as many as usual, and matching the highest monthly gain in four years. Better yet, the number of production workers (counting only those directly engaged in production and excluding back-office and support personnel) increased by 50,000, the highest in nearly 20 years. Hiring was particularly strong in the motor-vehicle sector, where employment rose by 13,700 on a seasonally adjusted basis, the most since Fe...
By RCM Alternatives Eighty-nine percent of futures markets experienced a contraction of volatility in the first six months of 2017, which translates to a lack of trends for typical systematic Managed Futures managers for find Alpha from. Don’t look now – but there might be some needed movement taking shape in some markets. First up, the greenback. The U.S. Dollar Index is now off 10% on the year, breaking into new 16 month lows. Everybody is thinking: will this be the break lower that starts a prolonged downtrend – and if so – for how long? Is it Hurricane Harvey? Is it Emerging Markets booming? Is it the Euro hitting 2 and a half-yea...
Talking Points: The likelihood of tighter monetary policy in both the US and the Euro-Zone has lessened in recent days, potentially helping the British Pound against both. Meanwhile, the latest round of Brexit talks has now ended, removing a possible banana skin. As for economic data, a relatively quiet week lies ahead. Fundamental Forecast for GBP: Bullish The British Pound had a much better week at the end of August. It rallied against the US Dollar both before and after Friday’s weaker-than-expected payrolls data, and it firmed against the Euro both before and after signs emerged that the European Central Bank may not announce a d...
A key inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, remained unchanged year over year in July, per data released on August 31, 2017. It increased 0.1% in July on a monthly basis. Excluding food prices and fuel, core PCE measure — the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation — increased 1.4% in July year over year compared with 1.5% in June. However, it edged up 0.1% in July on a monthly basis. Therefore, it is still far from the Fed’s target of 2%. Consumer Confidence Although 236,000 people applied for jobless benefits in the week ended August 26, 2017 compared with 235,000 in the previous week, the labor marke...
In my calculations of utilization of labor and capital, there is a derivative of one equation that tells to what extent capacity and labor is being optimized. Here is the graph of current monthly data. As the lines get closer to 0%, they are more optimized. When they reach 0%, they are fully optimized. The graph shows that capacity is being fully optimized again as it was during the troubling 3rd quarter of 2104. Yet labor is being less optimized now. Capital has made improvements to their position, while labor has actually lost....
The stock market ended the month of August positive making it the 10th straight month the S&P 500 was up on a total return basis. In the past two days, it seemed like someone wanted the market to be up for the month as it rallied just enough to achieve that goal. The last North Korean action did nothing to stymie the market as the S&P 500 is within 1% of its all-time high. The VIX fell 5.61% to close the month at 10.59. As you can see from the chart below, this was the 4th lowest monthly close for the VIX since 1990. As you can see, the high is the highest on this list because of the brief worry about North Korea. Some stats don’t...
The planet-sized egos of rock & roll performers are legendary. Few things symbolize this better than the outrageous requests they often make when on tour. These requests are referred to as “riders”, and appear in the contract a tour venue receives in advance of the artist’s arrival. These contract riders specify the physical conditions that the singer/band requires to be in place before arriving to perform. Stage lighting settings, sound equipment, furnishings, etc — that kind of stuff. And these rider requests can get pretty funky – often extremely so — when it comes to backstage perks the performers w...
Fundamental Forecast for CNH: Neutral Asian Stocks Mixed Despite Strong China Data, US Payrolls Loom Asian Stocks Mixed As Jackson Hole Disappoints, Yuan Gains The Chinese Yuan had the largest weekly gain against the U.S. Dollar since January in the offshore market. The USD/CNH dipped 6.5442, a 14-month low level (high for the Yuan), following the release of a worse-than-expected U.S. Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) print. On the contrary, both the Chinese official and Caixin manufacturing prints released earlier beat forecasts, adding strength into the Yuan. Looking forward, China will have a heavy economic calendar, including Consumer Price Index...
A strong week helped keep the S&P 500’s monthly winning streak alive, although the red-hot NASDAQ had the first negative down month in recent memory. The devastation of Harvey and more provocations by North Korea were overlooked by investors in favor of strong GDP growth, potential tax reform, a friendly jobs report and views that central banks will remain accommodative. Weekly Returns: S&P 500: 2,477 (+1.4%) FTSE All-World ex-US: (+0.5%) US 10 Year Treasury Yield: 2.16% (-0.01%) Gold: $1,325 (+2.6%) EUR/USD: $1.186 (-0.4%) Major Events: Monday – Apple announced it will hold a product launch event on September 12th. Monday – G...