Dec 30, 2009

Daily Markets - Financial News & Opinions

Daily Markets - Financial News & Opinions

Stock Investor Sentiment: Are The Sentiment Indicators Useless?

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 11:01 PM PST

As we have chronicled, investor sentiment has not been a very useful tool for timing the market the past 6 months. The “Dumb Money” indicator has been extremely bullish since the end of July, yet the S&P500 has tacked on - albeit begrudgingly - about 14% since that time. Looking at the sentiment picture from the perspective of company insiders, insider selling has exceeded insider buying by historic amounts since May, and company insiders continue to sell significantly despite the strong … [visit site to read more]


Iraq Oil Output To Rival Saudi Arabia, If…

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 10:01 PM PST

What was once considered a pipe-dream could become reality: after decades of dictatorship, war and international sanctions, Iraq’s massive oil reserves are set to be tapped proper and the country once known for two overflowing rivers could be crowned oil king.

If the seven oil projects awarded to foreign oil companies this weekend, and the three from an auction earlier this year, develop as planned, within eight years, Iraq will see its oil production capacity leap to more than 12 … [visit site to read more]

A Look At The Two Dual Rallies In The S&P 500 And US Dollar Index In 2009

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 09:01 PM PST

With many eyes focusing on the dual (and puzzling) rally in both the US Dollar Index and the S&P 500, I thought it would be good to go back starting with the March 2009 lows and see how many times this has happened recently - it turns out that there have been two times that the S&P 500 and US Dollar Index rallied simultaneously.  Let’s see them.

(Click for full-size image)

Starting with the March 2009 lows (to keep the chart readable), we notice that the dollar rallied … [visit site to read more]

Markets Fail. That’s Why We Need Markets

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 08:01 PM PST

This seemingly paradoxical view is based on several overlapping strands of research in economics as it pertains to development, history, technology, business expansion, and new-firm formation. According to this view, entrepreneurs at work in the economy - in finance, high tech, manufacturing, services, and beyond - are constantly experimenting, creating new business models, techniques, and technologies that upend the established order of things.

Some new technologies and innovations … [visit site to read more]

Rydex Market Timers: Expecting End Of Year Bounce

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 07:01 PM PST

The Rydex market timers are betting heavily that an end of the year bounce will materialize as the bullish and leveraged assets now exceed the bearish and leveraged assets by more than 2 to 1. See figure 1, a daily chart of the S&P500 with the ratio of bullish and leveraged assets to bearish and leveraged in the lower panel.

Figure 1. S&P500/ Rydex Leveraged Bull v. Leveraged Bear/ daily

Now remember the Rydex market timers are only a representative sample of all market … [visit site to read more]

Video: The Day Ahead: Chicago PMI

Posted: 30 Dec 2009 12:00 AM PST

The stories, data, and stocks that may have the greatest impact during the next trading session. … [visit site to read more]

Singapore Stock Market: Focus On Property

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 06:13 PM PST

Our Focus For Today Is On Property, Mid Cap, Small Cap and Commodity Sector
Singapore Market started easier on Wednesday in light trading as many investors started vacations for the New Year holidays.

SinoGrandness broke high of 0.45

Corporate Announcements
Keppel Corp has delivered West Vencedor to Seadrill Limited ahead of schedule and within budget, garnering a bonus of $100,000. The completion wraps up a record year of 13 rig deliveries by Keppel FELS, all of them … [visit site to read more]

What’s Really Happening In Real Estate

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 06:01 PM PST

My friend George Ure, publisher of Urban Survival (and a related blog of the same name), as well as the Peoplenomics subscription newsletter, has posted an eye-opening commentary, “Coping: With What No One Wants To Say” (excerpted below), detailing industry insiders’ perspectives on what is really happening in the real estate market.

While the news that things aren’t getting any better in CRE and RRE won’t be much of a surprise to those who’ve actually been paying attention, it would … [visit site to read more]

Gold Is The Decade’s Best

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 05:11 PM PST

Happy holidays wishes to all, with a special season’s greetings to the permanent gold skeptics.

The decade that ends Thursday is on track to be the worst in recorded history for the U.S. stock market - worse than all of the many boom-and-bust cycles of the 19th century, worse than the Great Depression-era 1930s, worse than the recession-plagued 1970s.

The S&P 500 opened the decade at 1,469.25 on January 3, 2000. When the market closed on Christmas Eve, the S&P 500 stood at … [visit site to read more]

SPY Gap Repetition Breeds Familiarity

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 05:02 PM PST

… and “Familiarity Breeds Contempt.”  Let’s take a quick pure price look at the recent five overnight gaps in the SPY - S&P 500 during the oozing uptrend that is taking place in the holiday bullish seasonality in the US Equity Markets.

I often use pure price charts to discover any specific repetitive pattern in price action that I might otherwise miss when looking at a chart with lots of indicators.

In this way, you can discover the 'character’ or behavior of a … [visit site to read more]

Bear Play On Silver ETF

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 05:01 PM PST

SLV - iShares Silver Trust - It looks as though commodity traders have it all to play for in 2010. Raw materials prices had surged especially late in 2009 as they felt the tailwind of a declining dollar. However, an abrupt about-face helped pull the rug and several commodity prices went into a tailspin. The irony here is that it’s a strengthening global economy backed by evidence of rising demand for industrial inputs that has lifted silver and copper prices independently of the hoarding … [visit site to read more]

Forex Commentary: Friendly Consumer Confidence Report Underpins US Dollar

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 04:45 PM PST

The U.S. Dollar managed to hold on to its gains after erasing earlier losses following the release of a friendly Consumer Confidence report. Although the reported figure of 52.9 was slightly less than estimates, it still reflected continuing strength in the economy. Tuesday morning the S&P/Case Shiller report on home prices was flat. There was almost no reaction to this report by Forex traders. Expect more of the same trading Wednesday as major players remain absent during the holiday … [visit site to read more]

Are Developed Nations Fiscally Sustainable?

Posted: 29 Dec 2009 04:31 PM PST

This edition examines the fiscal sustainability of developed economies. The context is that before the crisis there were already structural problems that had caused government deficits to expand such as aging populations, growing welfare programs, lack of spending discipline, etc. Then came the crisis.

The global financial crisis required massive stimulus measures to attempt to limit the damage. For the time being it appears to have worked (beyond the scope of this article). But on the … [visit site to read more]
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