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  • Finance 0

    Silver Soars, Stocks Slump As Equity “Fear” Hits All-Time Record High

    “smooth sailing”, right? Something is going on beneath the covers… Last week saw the biggest addition of shorts across the Treasury Bond Complex in over 3 years (with record ultra shorts)… And CSFB’s “Fear Barometer” just hit an all-time high… As CS’ Mandy Xu notes, typically, an increase in the CSFB is caused by a combination of higher put demand and lower call demand. Interestingly, this time, the entire move was driven by the call-side. The derivatives market is assigning less than 1% probability the market will rise by 10% in the next three months vs. 17% probability it will fall b...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Sellers Keep Pressure On

    A second day where bulls were unable to hold early gains and markets closed at lows. Following from Friday’s action it was disappointing to see bulls failing to build on the two steps forward, one step back nature of this rally. The S&P closed with an inverse ‘hammer’ on confirmed distribution. The MACD continued to expand on its weakness with On-Balance-Volume close to triggering a ‘sell’ trigger of its own.  The ‘bull trap’ hasn’t yet confirmed, but tomorrow could be the day we see this happen. The Nasdaq wasn’t quite a bearish with selling volume avoiding the distribution turn fou...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Wait For A Pullback After Earnings Season To Buy Energy Stocks

    Generally I don`t think the Energy stocks are in line with the fundamentals of the sub $60 oil environment. Be patient, wait for a market pullback either in the summer or early fall to find value in Energy Stocks. Video Length: 00:14:19...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Commercial Gold Traders Appear To Be Losing Their Grip

    For years the best trading strategy in gold and silver has been to buy when the ‘net short’ position of commercial traders was low, and sell when the numbers were high. This chart courtesy Cotpricecharts.com shows commercial gold traders are ‘net short’ (purple bars) 207,000 contracts in the futures market. Last week the number was 208,000 and this was the largest number since December 2012.If we compare this chart to the gold chart just below this chart, we will see that in the past there was almost always a correlation between a large increase in the ‘net short’ position in the COT chart,and a top in the price of gold.  This ch...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    2012 Redux; They Really Don’t Know What They Are Doing

    The old adage is that strong and sustained economic growth cures many ills, if not all of them, so it is unsurprising that so many central banks would be so determined to create it. They are, surprisingly, limited in that endeavor as they always stop one step short of recognizing the shortfall. In other words, they will do everything (as they are now forcing themselves to prove) in the orthodox toolkit to achieve that goal but absolutely refuse any other means outside of it – including actual free markets. The big news over the weekend came from Italy, and it was more rumor and innuendo than anything. Some very ugly patterns have resurfaced...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    5 ETFs To Buy If Oil Stays At $40

    Finally, oil jolted higher in the April 8 week to near $40/ barrel, snapping a drawn-out downtrend. The WTI crude oil ETF United States Oil Fund (USO) added about 7.5% in the last five trading sessions (as of April 8, 2016) and Brent crude oil ETF United States Brent Oil (BNO) tacked on about 8.1% gains during the same timeframe. The impressive gains were prompted by the impending OPEC-Russia meeting in Doha on April 17 to talk about an output freeze and a decline in U.S. stockpiles. As per the U.S. Energy Department’s weekly inventory release, crude stockpiles reported a surprise reduction from their all-time high levels. The repor...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Stock Buy – Wells Fargo Bank

    I took action on one of the stocks listed on my April watch list. Just before Friday’s market close I bought shares of Wells Fargo Bank. If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you already know that I’ve bought up banking and insurance stocks this year. I’m doing this because in today’s market they offer the best discounts. This purchase of WFS is probably my last buy this year in this sector. I’ll only add more shares, if these stocks continue to drop in price. I bought 80 shares of Wells Fargo Bank (WFC) at $47.06 per share, for a total of $3,764.80. This new stock holding will increase my annual dividen...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Precious Metals Report – April 11, 2016

    Ira Epstein leads us through the day’s precious metal highlights. Video Length: 00:06:22...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    Gold Commitments Of Traders

    There was little change in this week’s Commitments of Traders report when it came to the positioning of traders within the gold futures market. Here is an updated chart reflecting the current composition. Hedge funds both slightly increased overall outright long positions and outstanding outright short positions with the result that their overall NET LONG position did slightly DECREASE as more new shorts were added than new longs. On the Commercials side, their overall NET SHORT position slightly increased while the Swap Dealer net short position slightly decreased. Together it was essentially a wash. Total open interest ( futures and optio...
    On April 11, 2016 / By
  • Finance 0

    What Separates Extraordinary Investors From All The Rest?

    This post is an excerpt from the most recent edition of The Felder Report PREMIUM: What separates truly extraordinary investors from all the rest? It’s simple: They are extraordinarily discriminating. I talk to a lot of investors. Every one of them is looking for that next, great trade. They’re researching, studying charts, reading annual reports and analyzing financial statements, whatever their process calls for, and they should be scouring the markets like this. You can’t expect to reap the rewards of any activity without first sowing the seeds in this way. The one distinction, however, I notice between average traders and investor...
    On April 11, 2016 / By