ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
This picture is exactly what I do not want to see as the stock market struggles to hold critical technical supports: a major index of economically-sensitive stocks confirming a breakdown of support at its 200-day moving average (DMA). The Materials Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLB) lost 1.3% on a day when the S&P 500 (SPY) … Read more
The Canadian dollar (FXC) is at an interesting juncture. Strong economic data has strengthened the currency but the Bank of Canada (BoC) has applied brakes on currency’s rally. The Canadian dollar weakened in the wake of policy statements in October and December. The last word of 2017 went to the economic data as hot inflation … Read more
The currency market painted a bullish interpretation of the latest monetary policy decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). By the time of the September quarter GDP report, that incremental bullishness disappeared and setup a bearish interpretation of the Australian economy. Source: FreeStockCharts.com The net result, which includes a U.S. jobs report, is an … Read more
When I described U.S. Concrete (USCR) as a strong play on the U.S. economy, I noted I would wait for a dip in the stock before picking a spot to buy. That opportunity came a lot faster than I expected as USCR dipped down on rising volume to the top of its previous trading range. … Read more
A little over a week ago, I explained why I put the Mexican peso and the Canadian dollar (FXC) on shorter leashes. Canada’s extremely strong second quarter GDP report at the end of August just loosened that leash a little. Statistics Canada reported 2Q real GDP growth of 1.1%. The annualized growth rate of 4.5% … Read more
In my last posts on the euro (FXE), the Canadian dollar (FXC), and the British pound (FXB), I noted significant trading moves by speculators in foreign exchange as reported by the CFTC’s Commitments of Traders (CoT). The latest CFTC CoT report shows more of the same for these currencies but the backdrops may be shifting … Read more
The U.S. dollar index (DXY0) has started 2017 on a notable losing streak. The index’s clean close today below 100 is the latest confirmation of that weakness. The U.S. dollar index continued its dribbling down the lower part of Bollinger Bands (BBs) that define the current downtrend. Source: StockCharts.com This extension of weakness has complicated … Read more
After watching Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren speak at the South Shore Chamber of Commerce in Quincy, MA, I concluded Rosengren did not intend to rock the stock market on September 9, 2016. Ironically, the market’s extremely low volatility and lofty levels make the market “vulnerable” to good news. Good news drove Rosengren’s upbeat … Read more
Last week was full of important news for forex trading. As a dollar bull, euro bear, and yen bear, the week presented particular challenges that hedging could only soothe a little bit. I had a good run with these positions in recent weeks. As forex goes, a setback was due – just too bad the … Read more
There is nothing like a quick reversal of what is supposed to be good economic news to confirm a bearish bias. On May 31st (U.S. time), the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released its report on GDP for the March, 2016 quarter. GDP came in at a very strong 3.1% annualized rate thanks to another … Read more