Oil prices were higher again on Friday, in a renewed frenzy of risk appetite, as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave investors the signal they had been looking for. Speaking from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he essentially told investors that the Fed will step in if the economic recovery appears to be in serious trouble. As a result of his comments, traders and investors dumped the US dollar, which is considered a “safe haven,” and they bought equities and commodities, including oil. The fact that prices were still oversold and near support certainly did not hurt. Traders saw buying oil as a low-risk purchase, and then the Fed seemed to guarantee it. - Cameron Hanover

This week's CFTC Commitment of Traders action, presented in visual form. Some highlights: net spec long positions in wheat futures on the CBOT and the KCBOT hit fresh records, at 36.7k and 67.6k: is more food inflation on the immediate horizon? Net spec shorts in US Treasury Bonds, and LT Us Treasury Bonds, while still just negative at -5.8k, and -2.6k, respectively, are at the highest they have been in 2010: keep an eye on this metric as a positive inflection point may be the contrarian signal to sell. At least those concerned about the price of chocolate may rest easy: Cocoa ICE futures dipped to the lowest net spec total for 2010, at 8,092k. In currencies, the JPY posted the second highest net long exposure for 2010 at +51,069 Net Spec, an increase of 1,000 from a week prior, and a far cry from the -55.7k recorded on April 13. EUR net positions also droppe notably, after hitting a 2010 high of -3,731k, the net spec contracts have declined to -21.6k as of August 24.

In this week's update on technical chart formations, Goldman's John Noyce has nothing optimistic to tell clients. Noyce observes that while the market may have entered a short-term consolidation period with the 1,038-1,045, "looking further out the setup on the weekly charts of the S&P and the VIX, plus those for broader asset markets - fixed income in particular – make us think that a sustained bounce is unlikely and that broader risks remain on the downside." Yet the most interesting chart formation is the imminent flattening of the 2s30s... not here, but in the UK. Will the Julian Robertson "suicide" trade shift across the Atlantic?

In this week's Big Interview, the WSJ's Simon Constable interviews Robert Shiller who flat out says that an economic double dip may be "imminent." This compares to his earlier warning that he saw the chances of a double dip at over 50%. Guess that probability has now doubled. Notably, Shiller also believes that when the NBER looks back at the data, Q3 of this year will mark the beginning of the second dip of the recession. Ironically, since up to now the previous recession has never actually officially ended, very soon the NBER will merely confirm that the recession which started in December 2007, will have continued for three years, in what is possibly the longest recession on record. Furthermore, those looking to sell houses are advised not to listen to the interview, as the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index also added that he is worried housing prices could decline for another five years. He noted that Japan saw land prices decline for 15 consecutive years up to 2006. Following up on this week's weakest new home sales data in history this should probably not come as a big surprise to most. Also for bond fans, Shiller confirmed Rosenberg's view that bonds are not in a bubble. Hopefully Mr. Shiller bond prophecying skills in bonds are better than in houses, where it was mostly in hindsight in early 2007 when the bubble had already popped.

David Rosenberg has provided his typically succinct summary of the day's heavy dataflow, starting with the GDP number, parsing though Bernanke's speech, and concluding with a broad overview of where the market is heading, which is now so disconnected form a bond-implied FV in the upper 700s it is no longer funny.

While there is nothing to suggest a fundamental improvement in the economy, and judging by the latest batch of data the economy is in fact continuing to deteriorate, we have so far seen a substantial sell off in bonds across the curve, with the 2s10s steepening by 11 bps (just in time for the bull flattener bandwagon to enjoy some out-of-steepener rotation pain). So what is the catalyst for the selloff? Francesco Garzarelli's note to Goldman clients titled "Forecast Reached, Risks Now Balanced", in which he implicitly advises to take profits on USTs, sent earlier may provide some clues...

The ECRI Weekly came in at an annualized -9.9%, once again straddling the critical -10% boundary. Of course with two previous downward revisions, it appears the index' creators have taken up the government's favorite data fudging ploy of downward revising prior data, as the past week's -10% now ends up being -10.1%. No doubt next week this week's -9.9% will be revised to a worse number. But by then all the beneficial impact of the better number will be long forgotten.