ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Trees do not grow to the sky – even cryptocurrency trees with Bitcoin leaves. The old adage describes a core rule of the physics of price momentum. Whether buying or selling, traders and investors eventually exhaust themselves – whether existing resources are too low to maintain buying pressure or motivated sellers finally run out of … Read more
The U.S. Dollar Index Breaks Down The U.S. dollar broke down last week. The weekly chart below shows the U.S. dollar index (DXY) closed last week at a near 2-year low. Numerous anti-dollar bets are gaining fast thanks to the U.S. dollar’s breakdown. The cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC/USD) is joining the party. Bitcoin joins the anti-dollar … Read more
Sam Ro is a managing editor at Yahoo Finance. Ro’s tweet with data from FactSet and Goldman Sachs (GS) shows how just 5 stocks – Facebook (FB), Amazon.com (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Alphabet (GOOG) – dominate the S&P 500 (SPY). The top 1 percent seem to be the only story worth telling given … Read more
The Bank of Canada (BoC) released its latest Monetary Policy Report on July 15, 2020. Neither the report nor the press conference contained any surprises. The BoC did not change interest rates, kept the crank turning on its Quantitative Easing (QE) program, and promised to “hold the policy interest rate at the effective lower bound … Read more
The U.S. dollar index (DXY) continues to pivot around its 200-day moving average (DMA). Last week, the U.S. dollar bounced before retesting the lows from March. The U.S. dollar now looks ready to challenge its 200DMA as resistance; it will likely complete another cycle by rallying at least to the previous highs above the 200DMA. … Read more
Stock Market Statistics AT40 = 69.2% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) (ending 16 days overbought)AT200 = 20.5% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAs VIX = 40.8 (up 48.0%)Short-term Trading Call: cautiously bullish Stock Market Commentary It was fun while it lasted. The Federal Reserve delivered its latest … Read more
“Other scenarios for the recovery phase can readily be envisaged. Given the relatively rapid decline in the number of new COVID-19 cases in Australia, it is possible to contemplate an upside scenario where most domestic restrictions on activity are relaxed a little sooner and the economy recovers somewhat faster than in the baseline scenario. The greater … Read more
Price Failures The furious rally in Bitcoin (BTC/USD) from the March lows helped take my mind off the on-going downtrend in price. Since the last major peak in price at $13,880 on June 26, 2019, BTC/USD has made a series of lower highs and lower lows. The last peak in price was on May 7th … Read more
When a financial market gets expensive, traders and investors start broadening their search for low-price opportunities. As an overbought U.S. stock market hits the late stages of an impressive rebound from March’s crash, its stock market looks expensive. Meanwhile, “emerging market” currencies like the Turkish lira, South African rand, and the Mexican have barely started … Read more
The Canadian Dollar After the Canadian dollar (USD/CAD) sold off in the wake of the Bank of Canada’s latest Monetary Policy Report (MPR), I doubled down on my bullish bet on the currency (short USD/CAD). That bet paid off as general weakness in the U.S. dollar took USD/CAD back down to its 50-day moving average … Read more