Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, August 18, 2012
Stock Market Calm Before a Storm? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Global stock markets have been enjoying a remarkable summer rally since June, remarkable for several reasons.
For one thing, the rally has been much more substantial than typical summer rallies, which are usually brief time-wise, and average about a 5% gain by the S&P 500.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Sentiment Measure Shows No Fear of Major U.S. Stock Decline / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
The stock market's recent rally has seemed to ignore Europe's debt crisis and the weak U.S. economy, and in turn commentators have dusted off an old Wall Street phrase: wall of worry.
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Friday, August 17, 2012
The "Fear" Trade, Gold the Only True Safehaven / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
Stocks and interest rates are back to late spring – pre latest European fear levels - and the Jefferies/Thomson Reuters CRB index is at a three-month high.
Risk assets are obviously back in favor with investors - possible action by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the US Federal Reserve (Fed) could offer an explanation why:
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Friday, August 17, 2012
Why Bill Gross is Wrong About Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: I've gotten quite a few great questions from readers lately so I thought we'd take a quick peek into the mail bag today.
As always, I love answering questions from the Money Morning family so please feel free to keep the conversation going by sending your questions to: keith@moneymorning.com
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Friday, August 17, 2012
High-Frequency Trading Has the Potential to Kill the Markets / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
Shah Gilani writes: It's no wonder the public is scared to invest in stocks. They believe the game is rigged.
It is, and I'm going to tell you who's behind it, what's really happening, when it started, where the sinkholes are, why they're there, how you can play in the short run, and how America can get back to investing in a successful long-term future.
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Friday, August 17, 2012
Cash Is King? Swiss Bankers' New Safe Haven: Safe Deposit Boxes Full Of Banknotes / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012
Swiss banks have been doing an extremely brisk yet totally discreet trade with their "New Safe Haven" solution ever since the Eurozone crisis went into full swing and new bilateral tax-treaties were inked with major countries to prevent secret bank accounts in Switzerland being used for evading taxes. Those two drivers together may have inadvertently contributed to a powerful "New Safe Haven" solution.
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Friday, August 17, 2012
Will Bernanke Save the Stock Markets? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Vedran Vuk, Casey Research - How far is the Fed from reaching the bottom of its ammunition box?
Well, both Mario Draghi and Ben Bernanke said no to yet more monetary stimulus last week.
Wall Street unsurprisingly was disappointed.
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Friday, August 17, 2012
Disconnected Stock Markets Confound Investors / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
The current environment for investors is perhaps one of the most confusing that many have ever encountered. Unpredictable markets now appear to take no clue whatsoever from underlying economic data, and maxims long cherished by traditional money managers are being abandoned in favor of seemingly illogical choices. We are in a world in which apparently intelligent investors are willing to pay a premium for 10 year Treasury bonds that are almost certain to lose real value if held to maturity. While such an environment is enough to encourage many to cash out completely, we believe that investors should remain focused on the fundamentals, even if fewer others have the conviction to do so.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 16, 2012
What to Do When Every Market Is Manipulated, Hint: cut the strings / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
If you don't know who the sucker at the card table is, it's you. ~ old gambler's saying
What do the following have in common?
LIBOR, Bernie Madoff, MF Global, Peregrine Financial, zero-percent interest rates, the Social Security and Medicare entitlement funds, many state and municipal pension funds, mark-to-model asset values, quote stuffing and high frequency trading (HFT), and debt-based money?
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Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Stock Market Kiss of Death, Get Out the Popcorn, The Show is About to Begin / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Friends, you are looking at the game changer for the world markets. There are several reasons why.
The first is that this tolls the death knell for the bond carry trade that has sustained the banks for so long. In essence, they could borrow from the Fed at .25% and invest in notes and bonds at 1.8% (notes) to 2.8% (bonds) and profit from the “carry” or spread. Naturally, as notes yielded less and less, banks switched to bonds for the higher yield.
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Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to Markets, Inflation and Deflation Over the Next 8 Years / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
I could not go without writing a serious parody of the above original comedy series, so be prepared to enter this guide, which will hopefully offer a fraction of information in “the standard repository for all knowledge and wisdom”.
This planet has a problem – and has had this problem repeated throughout history – a problem that made most people living through it unhappy for pretty much all of the time...and this involved periods of inflation and deflation.
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Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Eurozone Crisis Escalates, Smuggled Cash, Gold & Silver Seizures Soar at Italy's Borders,Diamonds Are Forever? / Stock-Markets / Eurozone Debt Crisis
Panicked savers are smuggling cash from Italy resulting in 41 million euros being seized in random spot checks in the first seven months of 2012, which is almost 80 per cent up year-on-year. For each seizure by the border-control authorities and Guardia di Finanza -- Italian financial law enforcement -- it is likely that at least ten more cases slip under the radar of overworked and, in some cases, sympathetic police and border guards. Italian police are now deploying cash sniffing Labrador dogs that are trained to sniff out bank notes to counter the rising flight-of-capital from Eurozone's third largest economy. A number of seizures have been made at Leonardo da Vinci di Fiumicino airport in Rome and Malpensa airport in Milan where smugglers frequently attempt to get to the banking safe haven of Switzerland, which lies outside the clutches of the European Union and the Italian state.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Stock Market āEā Wave to Rally Market to Bull Cycle Highs / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
In recent updates I have been projecting a series of ABCDE waves to take the Bull market to post March 2009 highs in the 1425-1445 ranges. The recent pullback was expected as what I was calling a “D wave” pullback, with an E wave to come. These final 5th waves or E waves can be extension waves or relatively benign, hence causing difficulty in forecasting the upper ranges.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Jackson Hole: Make Or Break For The Markets 2012 / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
Investors, speculators, traders and fund managers alike will be glued to their flat screens at the end of August, hanging onto every word that the Chairman Ben Bernanke utters. They will be looking for some positive action on behalf of the Fed in terms monetary stimulus or Quantitative Easing Part Three. Every angle, inference, real or perceived meaning, will be analyzed to the fullest extent with the view to positioning ones portfolio accordingly.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Stock Market Complacency Hits 5 Year High, Calm Before the Storm / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
VIX declined within .01 of the March 16 low on an intraday basis. Tomorrow is the next Pivot Date for the VIX and it is probable that the VIX may gap up at the open. The VIX/SPX futures are in agreement. This has been quite a ride and changes the landscape for the decline in equities that has already begun.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Stock Market Holding Well..... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
The market is doing its Houdini act as it hides from the fundamental story out there globally. It seems to have tricks up its sleeves as it works its way around the mess that's out there no matter where you look save for a few spots on the map. Major headaches abound, yet the market, even if it tries to sell off, has a tough time doing so. It tried to today, but the bears couldn't really muster enough energy once they had the S&P 500 just below 1400. The bulls came in and kept the selling at a minimum. Some red arrows on the S&P 500 and Dow, but they were very small losses, while the Nasdaq 100 flashed green by a point.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Stock Market Running On Empty! / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. –Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC); Roman Statesman
It becomes harder and harder to find the truth and that certainly holds true with respect to government statistics. The investment world was pleased with the recent jobs report claiming 163,000 posts were created in July. It was a small step, but at least it was in the right direction. Or was it? When I tell you that the numbers are fudged I realize that doesn’t carry a lot of weight, but here’s what the Washington Post had to say about how the Bureau of Labor Statistics processes data:
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Monday, August 13, 2012
Credit Crunch Fifth Anniversary / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
We are coming up to the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis, at least for the UK’s banking system, because it was five years ago that anxious depositors were queuing up to withdraw their money from Northern Rock, leading to its inevitable rescue by the tax-payer.
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Monday, August 13, 2012
Stock Market Bulls Still In Control, But Time Is Running Out / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
In last week's article "Three Weeks Left" I outlined a brief synopsis of what I was expecting based on how the daily cycles were unfolding. So far markets are playing out pretty much as anticipated.
This week I'm going to go a bit more in depth and tie cycle's analysis with the upcoming fundamental calendar, namely the next two FOMC and Jackson Hole meetings.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Stock Market Top Forming? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Very Long-term trend - The very-long-term cycles are down and, if they make their lows when expected (after this bull market is over) there will be another steep and prolonged decline into late 2014. It is probable, however, that the steep correction of 2007-2009 will have curtailed the full downward pressure potential of the 120-yr cycle.
SPX: Intermediate trend - SPX is in a limited intermediate uptrend which is estimated to end in the first week of August.
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