Chart Review: TBT Survives the Test As Gross Growls and Romer Fails

In late February, I lamented that TBT, the Pro Shares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury ETF, was careening toward a retest of the 200-day moving average (DMA) that it would lose. After three more weeks, the anticipated retest finally occurred, and TBT survived. *Chart created using TeleChart: The retest of the 200DMA was a great reminder … Read more

Setting Up for Another First of Month Pop…or A Bull Trap?

Buyers are again lifting the stock market from its intra-day lows and providing some potential clues on where to draw the bull/bear lines from a technical perspective. The case for a bullish setup is relatively strong: Three days of high volume selling is washing out sellers. 50-day moving average (DMA) essentially successfully retested, leaving primary … Read more

Coping with Destabilizing Coffee Prices

Coffee prices have soared along with most other commodities over the past year and more. For example, the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Total Return Sub-Index ETN (aka JO) is up 70% since the end of 2009. The last earnings results from Starbucks (SBUX) demonstrated the stress from these higher coffee prices. The company slightly lowered … Read more

Skeptical the British Pound Can Sustain A Breakout Versus the U.S. Dollar For Now

After scanning through the latest quarterly release of the “Statement of Monetary Policy” from the Reserve Bank of Australia, I was reminded that currency traders are trying to prepare for eventual rate hikes from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE): “While financial markets continue to expect the US federal funds … Read more

Bank of Canada’s Base Case Straps Its Dollar Around Parity With U.S.

Currency traders appeared very disappointed that the Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged on Tuesday. The Canadian dollar (“loonie”) immediately bounced sharply from near three-year highs against the U.S. dollar, and the USD/CAD eventually popped over parity (1.0) for the first time in two weeks on Thursday. The accompanying statement suggested that the Bank … Read more