ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
I was about a month premature and about 19% in missed gains when I flagged the potential start of a parabolic move in silver. Or perhaps my definition of a parabolic move should have been more expansive. Either way, silver’s behavior over the past four trading days definitely has taken on the tipsy look of … Read more
Ahead of last week’s big events, I suggested that the market was setting up for a surprise reaction. So far, the biggest surprise has been the timing of the market’s big rally reaction after the election and the Federal Reserve’s announcement of quantitative easing and before the unemployment report. But that is not the surprise … Read more
Bloomberg summarized the latest missive from Bill Gross in a piece called “Fed Easing to Signify End of Bull Market, Gross Says.” Gross called an end to the 30-year bull market in bonds thanks to the the Federal Reserve’s planned second round of quantitative easing. I decided to read Gross in his own words, and … Read more
On Tuesday morning the Bank of Canada decided to leave its overnight interest rate unchanged at 1.0% and confirmed the caution expressed by Governor Mark Carney on CNBC almost a month ago. The concluding paragraph in the statement on monetary policy summarizes the Bank’s concern about current economic conditions: “At this time of transition in … Read more
Since peaking in June, the dollar has arguably experienced a near freefall. These moves reflect the near certainty felt amongst investors and traders about the Federal Reserve’s intention to print more currency to forestall the threat of deflation. However, with dollar shorts at their highest levels in three years and the dollar index stalling at … Read more
Last month, as the British pound hovered around the converging support of the 50-day moving average (DMA) and the 200DMA, I noted that the currency “awaited a catalyst” before starting a new trend versus the U.S. dollar. At the time, I suggested that catalyst depended more on dollar-related forces. Sure enough, the dollar index followed … Read more
As the world’s currency wars rage on, the Federal Reserve is re-emerging as the “victor.” The dollar index looks ready to erase all its gains for 2010 on the heels of the Fed’s threat to roll out quantitative easing (QE) Part 2. This threat in turn came on the heels of the Bank of Japan’s … Read more
In “The Dollar Is Headed Lower“, Randall W. Forsyth wrote in Barron’s that “The dollar’s trend now is unequivocally lower. And that’s apparent whether you look at fundamental factors or the technical picture on the charts.” He does a good job of summarizing the current condition of de facto competitive devaluation that is increasing the … Read more
“…the Republicans, I think, have been cutting taxes with borrowed money, and the Democrats have been spending with borrowed money. They agree only on the borrowed money. And the system cannot take that…We are now at a state where, excluding World War II, we are in the worst shape of the relationship between borrowing capacity … Read more
Bill Fleckenstein, President of Fleckenstein Capital and one of my favorite money managers, was on CNBC’s Fast Money Wednesday night giving his typical, colorful commentary on gold. I am posting an approximate transcript to his brief interview because it included what I think should be a classic moment in gold commentary. Toward the end of … Read more