ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
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
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 27, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) This month’s acceleration in the now 4-year sell-off in commodities seems to indicate that markets are getting serious about bracing for a tightening cycle from the Federal Reserve. I have mainly … Read more
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare a disaster in areas of the state hit hard by flooding. He should have asked for disaster relief on behalf of all the nation’s corn. Illinois was the nation’s #2 producer of corn in 2014, but the potential damage from on-going flooding in … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 24, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) {snip} In the middle of this fresh decline, the Bank of Canada delivered its July Monetary Policy Report with another rate cut included. The reaction in the currency market was just … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on June 8, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) Statistics Canada released its monthly GDP report for April as time counted down on Greece’s June 30th debt deadline. While the news from the report could not steal headlines, it was … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on Jan 22, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) My re-evaluation of my newfound bullishness on the Canadian dollar came just in time for a surprise rate cut from the Bank of Canada (BoC). The CurrencyShares Canadian Dollar ETF (FXC) … Read more
(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
(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
A little over two weeks ago I generated some simple trading scenarios for the United States Oil Fund LP (USO). The scenarios depended upon well-behaved volatility for oil, the CBOE Crude Oil ETF Volatility Index (OVX). OVX is now on the edge of breaking out above its 50-day moving average (DMA). The move was led … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 27, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) One of my tenets from the (revised) “Commodity Crash Playbook” is to respect momentum and trends in commodity trading and investing… {snip} Iron ore has become a fascinating case in point. … Read more