Archive - Jul 28, 2011

Gold is marginally higher against most currencies today and is trading at USD 1,614.40, EUR 1,130.50, GBP 990.08 and CHF 1,294.50 per ounce. Gold is flat against the dollar but remains just less than 1% from the record nominal high reached yesterday ($1,628.05/oz).  The euro is under pressure again today and gold is 0.7% higher against the euro and is just less than 1.5% away from the record euro high of EUR 1,144.80/oz reached last Monday. Investors were made nervous by comments from chemicals major BASF, which said it saw global economic growth slowing as it posted weaker-than-expected earnings, sending its stock down 4.9%. Siemens AG, Europe's largest engineering conglomerate, warned that global economic risks were increasing and posted below forecast results. Its shares fell 1.3%. The Dow to Gold Ratio has again turned down suggesting gold may continue to outperform U.S. stocks and the DJIA, in particular, in the coming weeks. The long term target of below 2:1 remains viable.

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On the one week anniversary of Europe's second bailout one may be tempted to ask "what bailout" looking at the across the board deterioration in European market metrics: Spanish 10 Year bonds over 6.00% again, Italy CDS surging to 330 bps, Italy Bunds spreads at 331 just inches away from all time wides of 353 bps, EURUSD plunging by over 100 pips overnight, CAC, DAX, OMX all falling by more than 1 standard deviation as VW, chemical maker BASF, and Credit Suisse all missed earnings estimates, and, of course, numerous Italian banks (don't disappoint us UniCredit) once again on the verge of being halted after plunging by a solid 5-6%. Several reasons for the weakness: i) Italy auctioned off €8 billion in 3,4,7,10 and year fixed and floating rate notes generating weaker than expected results with the 10 year bond gross yield rising to 5.77%, the highest since 2000, and just under the all time record of 5.81%, and the 3 year gross yield of 4.80 pushing to the highest since 2008, ii) more rumors of Tremonti resigning, iii) European retail sales declining for a third month according to Markit, and iv) a decline in Euro-area economic confidence more than estimated, dropping from 105.4 to 103.2, below the consensus of 104.0. German bunds are once again well bid with September futures rising 0.2% to 129.63. But not before rumors of ECB buying peripheral bonds via the SMP spooked bunds lower, with the resulting rise being only a result of the flight from Italy. And putting a cherry on top of it all was ECB's Mersch who once again resumed the old party line, saying that fears of a "premature end to euro are unfounded." And to think that just a week earlier the ECB told us we would never have to worry about the end of the euro.

A snapshot of the European Morning Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.
Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge

Some have said that the Fed and Washington want the value of the dollar to plummet so the nation’s debt may be repaid in cheaper dollars. Perhaps all this debt ceiling mess is just part of the grand design?  If so, then pretty soon, these Art of Defaced US Dollars would be worth more than the real dollar.

This is actually a very simple concept, although some politicians and economists unintentionally or intentionally muddy the waters ...

Relevant news by www.thetrader.se

Dramatic title I realize but look at the charts below and ask yourself if this is purely coincidence or something more telling. Regulars to this site have read posts comparing the current market to that of late 2007. From equities to credit markets to volatility and more the similarities across asset classes has been rather striking. The basis for these comparisons was the belief that at major inflection points markets are more about psychology than they are technicals and or macro data. Since human nature never changes patterns will repeatedly play out as discussed by Jesse Livermore (the following is from a book discussing his trading beliefs). He observed that human emotions collectively had major impacts on the movement of stock prices and Markets in general, ultimately creating patterns that kept repeating.”