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Today, wheat prices hit their highest levels in two years. Russia announced a ban on exports, sending wheat “limit-up” on the day, as September futures closed at $7.83 a bushel. It’s been a wild ride for wheat this year: Since the 4th of July, wheat has really taken off. (Source: Barchart.com) Wheat headlining the Wall […]
Has any trade over the last few years frustrated more sophisticated investors than the “one-way” bet on rising long-term government interest rates? For the last 2 or 3 years, many (including myself) have been piling into ETFs (like TBT) that act as short proxies for rising long term interest rates. And the logic has been so sound, […]
Today Minyanville carried a piece entitled Seven ETFs to Play Deflation, which highlighted high dividend paying ETFs and interest paying bond funds. While I agree with the premise IF deflation is mild and US growth is merely slower than normal, I’d be cautious about the dividend funds if we see a wicked wave of deflation […]
Today, the volatility index (VXX) hit its lowest level in 3 months. Does this mean we have a large stock market decline in our future? Over the last 6 months, lows in the VIX have corresponded with tops in stocks. Since May’s spike, it’s been a series of lower lows and lower highs for the […]
These days we are keeping a keen eye on markets that have been reliable leading indicators of the stock market. Since 2004 or so, markets have become quite interrelated, creating a lot of interesting relationships in markets that previously had little or no correlation. The correlation of course peaked during the 2007-2009 downturn, when EVERYTHING […]
Since the stock market put in a short term bottom a couple of weeks ago (thanks to overwhelming pessimism), the mini-rally since has been a one-way street UP – until today. This has been the trend of the market since about 2003 or so – it’s either up for many consecutive time periods (like 2003-2007, […]
Our new favorite money manager is Hugh Hendry – the only thing better than his financial insights are his one-liners! (see Hugh: “I would recommend you panic”) In this interview, Hugh shares his take on George Soros’ socialist tendencies, and identifies an “Axis of Financial Evil” in Europe. He also likes the play of shorting […]
Intel’s stock is flying high after hours today! Shares are up over 8% right now, as the company reported record profit margins, a 34% jump in revenue, and an across the board cheery outlook that’s got investors feeling pretty jolly. So what’s the deal – many of us were waiting for the next shoe to […]
Not much of note today, as we saw a very lazy summer trading day. Are some fireworks just around the corner? Some thoughts for the rest of the trading week: NYSE decliners led advancers today by about 2 to 1 (Source: Seeking Alpha) – a sign of things to come? Earnings season is kicking off […]
Last week, we picked up a story courtesy of Bespoke Investments that showed just 4% of S&P 500 stocks were above their 50-day moving average – a level not even seen during the March 2009 lows! So we thought a stock market bounce might be on tap – and sure enough, this week we got […]
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