Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
Ursa Major in the sky
Time to sell stocks is nigh
Last night was bright and clear in France. We could see the Milky Way stretched out against the dark background.
And there was the bear…Ursa Major.
Last week, stocks got hammered…mauled…beaten up…
[Read more...]Wow…another whack.
Wall Street got whacked hard yesterday. It had begun to look as though things were getting back to normal. Then…whammo!
Yesterday, the Dow took a 419 point hit. Gold rose $28 to close decisively above $1,800.
We keep an eye on stocks and gold. Stocks measure the value of America’s businesses. Gold measures the value of America’s – and the world’s – money. What are these measures telling us?
[Read more...]In the first five minutes of trading this morning, the Dow fell 300 points. It fell a further 40 in the ensuing 25 minutes. Then shed another 150 the moment the Philadelphia Fed announced grim news for manufacturing at 10:00 a.m.
As you might expect, the “safety trade” is back on.
At the opening, it sure looks like today will be the day gold breaks $1,800… and sticks. At last check, the Midas metal is up to $1,822.
[Read more...]The Dow Jones Industrial Average bounced another 214 points yesterday to 11,483. From the lows of last Wednesday, the Dow has surged nearly 800 points and has erased all of last week’s losses.
Just like that, the correction is over!
If you happen to have awakened yesterday from a ten-day coma, you probably assume that nothing much happened while you were unconscious. The Dow is almost exactly where it was on August 5th. But something did happen. Stocks gyrated wildly, bond yields plummeted, precious metals soared and investors around the globe scratched their heads about what to do next.
[Read more...]Mr. Market spoke last week….
Unfortunately, no one could understand a word he was saying. Like a back-alley drunk, Mr. Market was mumbling about so much of everything that he wasn’t saying anything at all.
Since July 26, Mr. Market has obliterated $6.8 trillion of global market capitalization. That’s fairly decisive. But last week, he seemed to be having second thoughts…and third thoughts.
[Read more...]There is beauty in life, and there is truth. The two are not mutually exclusive, necessarily, though a coincidence can be rare. Often times, the truth is not as attractive as we would like for it to be. And sometimes beauty is but a lie. But every once in a while, the two converge…and the result is rarely displeasing.
[Read more...]The world is undercollateralized. This is the single most important feature of the 2011 economy. Sixty years ago, if assets were worth less than loans, it was possible to work our way into the black. In 1950, 59% of US corporate profits were from manufacturing; 9% were from finance. The roles of manufacturing and finance have reversed. Thus, we witness the desperate attempts to forestall what cannot be prevented. Yet, the world must deleverage. Banks must write off loans. Loans to bankrupt developers and companies must be called. Living standards must fall.
[Read more...]I admit that I am pretty lazy, and I don’t do a lot of technical analysis of markets and/or prices, but I do some charting of some things, and I naturally come across some of what others write about emerging chart patterns, and price-points, and channels, and bands, and stuff I don’t understand even more than I don’t understand any of this.
[Read more...]Copyright © 2012 · Church Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in
Markets React to the Fed’s Newest Form of Intervention
Confidence down. Stocks downer. Gold downest.
Gold, as Fellow Reckoners have no doubt observed, is off big time today. The Midas metal has tumbled almost $100 in the past 24 hours. As of this writing, an ounce trades for about $1,638…although that figure is likely to be outdated by the time you read this. For perspective, the $1,650 mark was celebrated as an all-time nominal high just a month and a half ago. What a change six weeks can make.
[Read more...]