Above the 40 (March 2, 2018) – Trump Pulls the Trade War Tripwire

AT40 = 27.1% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) AT200 = 44.4% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAs VIX = 19.6 Short-term Trading Call: neutral (caveats below!) Commentary President Trump has been talking about taking unilateral trade actions since he was campaigning in 2016. The rhetoric heated up … Read more

Maximum Bearishness For Silver?

For the first time since at least 2008, speculators flipped bearish on silver. Source: Oanda’s CFTC’s Commitments of Traders Speculative net contracts have trended downward for about a year and approached zero in December around the time the Federal Reserve last hiked rates. Yet, I did not think it was “possible” for positioning to go … Read more

Housing Market Review (February, 2018) – Stalled and Toppy

The last Housing Market Review covered data reported in January, 2018 for December, 2017. At the time, I described the ominous breakdown of the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB), but I was not yet ready to connect the dots on the bearish implications. I am now. ITB has continued its breakdown by first severely … Read more

Four Fed Rate Hikes This Year? Not Even Close

New Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had his say with Congress this week and some of the conventional financial media and pundits have been shrill with speculation about the potential for four rate hikes in 2018 as a result of Powell’s word choices and tone. This number of hikes is reportedly one more hike than … Read more

Above the 40 (February 28) – An S&P 500 Breakdown Helps Drag Market to Edge of Oversold

AT40 = 25.4% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) AT200 = 43.9% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAs VIX = 19.9% Short-term Trading Call: neutral (caveats below!) Commentary As I feared was likely, the S&P 500 (SPY) wasted no time in breaking its 50-day moving average (DMA) support. … Read more