A Busted Stock Trader In China: Real Life Pain

On July 29, 2015, Nightly Business Report included a poignant segment featuring the painful story of a busted stock trader in China. The path from hope (greed?) to despair sounds like a classic with a twist. At least this particular trader took too many cues from the Chinese government, a government whose policies have clearly … Read more

Forgo the United States Oil ETF In Favor Of the United States Gasoline ETF?

I recently read an article that attempted to dive into the nuances of trading the United States Oil ETF (USO) versus the United States Gasoline ETF (UGA). I suddenly realized that through all the nuanced comparisons the forest was being lost for the trees. Since at least 2009, UGA has greatly outperformed USO. In fact, … Read more

T2108 Update (July 28, 2015) – An Important Stock Market Turnaround

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

The Australian Dollar Suffers Pressures From All Corners – Except Rate Expectations

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 28, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) When I last wrote about the Australian dollar (FXA), it was wavering at the 0.74 support level against the U.S. dollar. More importantly, market expectations for an August rate cut from … Read more

The Commodities Crash Accelerates: Scenarios for Trading Oil

Several authors have pointed out the difficulties in fashioning trades to take advantage of the movement in oil prices (for a recent example, see “Is Gasoline The Smart Oil Play? UGA Vs. USO“). Analyses counting off the bullish and bearish arguments on oil can fill many tomes. For example, there is fear of a drop … Read more