Futures market

There are no free financial markets in America, or for that matter anywhere in the Western word, and few, if any, free markets of any other kind. The financial markets are rigged by the big banks, the Federal Reserve, and the Treasury in the interests of the profits of the few big banks and the dollar’s exchange value, which is the basis of US power. It is just as amazing that Americans and Europeans are so trapped in The Matrix that they have no inkling that their future has been destroyed.

"Like pushing a rock up a hill," is how some trader’s view the current disconnect between the physical market for crude oil and the futures market with speculators pushing futures prices higher while the physical market remains moribund.

Economic events and data in the week ahead.

It looks like US dollar's two-month downside correction ended.  Is the bull market resuming?

No matter what investors SAY they will do, they will almost always succumb to the emotional investment mistakes caused by being human.

Gold topped $1230 this morning - breaking to 3-month highs and up over 4% year-to-date - up 5 days in a row for the best run in 4 months. The surge comes causally or correlatedly coincidental with China's explicit shift into extraordinary measures (LTROs) but, as The FT reports, market participants are concerned that algo-based funds have created a "frenetic liquidity" environment as everyone from real money to central banks "aren’t trading the gold market the way they used to."

Dollar downmove still seems corrective in nature.  Fed hike in September still seems most likely scenario.  Taalk of US recession is over the top when unemployment, broadly measured is falling and weekly initial jobless claims are at new cyclical lows.  

"The sharp rise in bond volatility over the past week or so is reminiscent of the VaR shocks of October 2014 in US rates and April 2013 in Japanese rates," JP Morgan says, before explaining how volatility induced selling (i.e. a VaR shock) is behind the rout in German Bunds. Predictably, QE has helped create the conditions which make such episodes possible.

A straightforward analysis of the near-term outlook for the dollar, oil, 10-year US and German yields and the S&P 500.  

Yogi Berra, one of the keenest observers of the human condition, is said to have once remarked "It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future."  And so it is.

In reviewing the financials of one of the largest shale producers in the United States, Whiting Petroleum, we can’t help but notice the parallels to the .COM era of 1999 which, to some extent, has already returned to the technology and biotech sectors of today.

JP Morgan’s massive silver buying brings to mind the Hunt Brothers' attempt to corner the silver market in the late 1970s. The Texas oil-tycoons tried to corner the silver market by accumulating a massive silver futures position.  Ted Butler has estimated that JP Morgan may currently hold far more than their official figure of 55 million ounces.

Greece must pay $3.8 billion to the IMF over the course of the next month and most analysts believe they will not be in a position to do so unless they can access the outstanding $7.2 billion in funds that form part of the existing program. Ukraine have also been flirting with a default.

If the DOJ and CFTC is going to be consistent, then they have to indict the entire financial community from the CME, Exchanges, Brokers, Institutions, Investment Banks, Hedge Funds, Management Funds and High Frequency Trading Firms.

October 15^th, 2014 wasn`t a market crash!