Good day. It was a warm walk across the bridge this morning, hard to believe we have temperatures in the mid-80s so early in the year. We usually get some odd days during March, which bring the temperatures up, but this summerlike weather has stayed for most of the month. It has certainly faked the plants out, as they are leafing out well ahead of schedule. Today, we will start to see if the nice weather we have had across the country has helped the housing industry. At least one Fed head is saying the warm weather is partially responsible for some of the recent gains we have seen in the economic data.
[Read more...]Jumping On the GATA Bandwagon
March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Good day. What a long day on the desk yesterday! Whew! I’m glad I got through that without leaving a mark! And I came back! I laugh, because in the early days of EverBank, what I now call a long day would have been a short day! I remember buying breakfast sandwiches for the desk, lunch and pizza for dinner, as we worked on building the foundation that’s now EverBank World Markets. It’s now a strong foundation.
[Read more...]WTI: No Longer A Benchmark For Oil Prices
February 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The continuous divergence between the price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent prices has called into question whether markets should continue to consider the price of WTI a benchmark at all. The biggest problem for WTI is that the physical characteristics of the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for WTI has been broken and has rendered the price of WTI obsolete as a benchmark for oil and gasoline prices in the U.S. However, markets have remained efficient in the sense that they have easily shifted their attention to alternative benchmarks, as is the case with the price of Louisiana Light Sweet (LLS) crude. In the past, the price of LLS remained very close to the price of WTI. However, since the divergence between WTI and Brent started, the price of LLS has followed the later rather than the former. Thus, markets have already chosen to de-emphasize WTI as a benchmark price for oil. In addition, the price of U.S. gasoline has followed the price of LLS and Brent rather than the price of WTI. [Read more...]
My Favorite Way to Own Silver
February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
My favorite way to own silver is the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (NYSE:PSLV). This is a product of the Eric Sprott group, of Toronto.
Units of this trust were trading well above $20 a few months ago. But today, even after silver’s January rally, the units are trading below $15. That’s a 25% decline, which is in sync with the drop in the price of silver.
[Read more...]Junior Gold Stocks Rebound from Lows
January 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The junior sector had a very difficult year in 2011 but has led the recent recovery (at least statistically) in the precious metals sector. Two of our favorite exchange traded funds, GDXJ and ZJG.to are up 30% and 25% respectively. That exceeds GDX (large caps) which has rebounded 15%. These are significant gains but barely put a dent in the low valuations for the sector. Ratio analysis shows us how undervalued the smaller gold stocks are yet an examination of history shows this is not out of the ordinary at this point in a bull market. [Read more...]
Junior Gold Stocks Rebound from Lows
January 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The junior sector had a very difficult year in 2011 but has led the recent recovery (at least statistically) in the precious metals sector. Two of our favorite exchange traded funds, GDXJ and ZJG.to are up 30% and 25% respectively. That exceeds GDX (large caps) which has rebounded 15%. These are significant gains but barely put a dent in the low valuations for the sector. Ratio analysis shows us how undervalued the smaller gold stocks are yet an examination of history shows this is not out of the ordinary at this point in a bull market. [Read more...]
Commodities Take Off!
January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Greek talks returned to the headlines this morning. I know I said this last Friday, and I was a little too optimistic and turned out to be wrong! But… I do expect this agreement on a private-sector involvement in Greek debt to get hammered out this weekend… It seems that the opposition from eurozone policymakers is backing off, and that has me optimistic once again.
[Read more...]
Successful Investing Strategies in a Government-Centric Market
You’ve heard of “risk on”; you’ve heard of “risk off”… But have you heard of “everything off”?
That’s the trade that seems to be underway right now. Investors are dumping everything with a ticker symbol: US stocks, foreign stocks, government bonds, corporate bonds, precious metals, crude oil and almost every other commodity.
[Read more...]