The mainstream media has this as a leading headline today… Recession Stalks Germany as Breakeven Rates Drop: Euro Credit. The falling cost of protecting against inflation in the German bond market portends a deeper slowdown in Europe’s largest economy, signalling the effects of the con...

The coming week is chock full of data that is likely to move the markets – unfortunately it is not likely to be higher.  The problem for market participants who have been elevating the markets over the last few weeks in the face of deteriorating fundamentals, earnings and economics, in antici...

In spite of the continuing bull market, investors pulled money out of equity mutual funds in the first half of this year at a surprising pace compared to the last two years. The Investment Company Institute says $55 billion exited in the first six months this year, compared to $24.6 billion in the f...

The $OEXA200R Monthly (the percentage of S&P 100 stocks above their 200 DMA) is a technical indicator available on StockCharts.com that I use to find the “sweet spot” time period in the market which offers the best chance of making money. See Is This the Best Stock Market Indicato...

Facebook gave its first quarterly report as a public company yesterday, and it failed to deliver the goods. Unfortunately, but as can be expected, the mainstream media and the sell side have apparently failed to pick up on the most pertinent aspect of the conference call, which also happens to have ...

At any given point in time there are several variables that affect the price of gold. There are times when gold’s price is driven by its perceived association with inflation and other times it’s seen as a “safety asset” or even a global currency. One variable in particular that was a constan...

For the first time in three years, US Quarterly Earnings are Poised to Drop.  Third-quarter earnings of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies are now expected to fall 0.1 percent from a year ago, a sharp revision from the July 1 forecast of 3.1 percent growth, Thomson Reuters data showed on Th...

Do not expect the financial media to provide you with advance warning of a third wave. The crowd is almost always on the wrong side of the market. Third waves arrive unannounced. Financial markets always have and always will pose two basic questions that investors seek to answer: What’s the...

Gold has been deeply out of favor lately, languishing in its usual summer doldrums.  This sentiment wasteland is driving traders to flee wholesale, including the futures players.  Their mass exodus from the gold market is readily apparent in futures data.  But provocatively such behavior is a pow...

The first estimate of the 2nd Quarter GDP was released at a 1.5% annualized growth rate which was just a smidgen better than the 1.4% general consensus.  I said last night on the radio program that this was likely to be the case as the first estimate is based on the consensus estimates as the BLS d...

The strange disconnect between Wall Street and most other major world indices continues. Last week’s two-day surge raised the SP500 and DJI back within the range of the two most significant bubble tops in modern history. Yet, the Street is convinced that in the coming week, both the FOMC and t...

It was pretty much baked in the cake that the economy is slowing so rapidly that the Federal Reserve will have to come to the rescue, possibly as soon as its FOMC meeting next week. But not so fast. Friday morning the Commerce Department released the nervously awaited 2nd quarter GDP report. It was...

On Thursday, ECB President Mario Draghi vowed to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. This has so far sparked a two-day rally in the global markets led by Europe. In our opinion, what it will take is for people/governments to stop spending more than they make. This, of course, will be the la...

Boomer demographics and postponement of marriage on account of student debt and poor finances are two of the key reasons that I long-ago stated the housing recovery would be slow for a decade. Declining birthrates now show that is indeed what is happening. First, please consider a short snip from m...

Tomorrow morning we get the Advance Estimate for Q2 GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Earlier this months I reported on the GDP forecasts in Wall Street Journal’s July survey of economists (available here). Their estimates ranged from a low of 0.7 percent to a high of 2.5 percent. The...

Earlier this morning I posted an update on the July Advance Report on June Durable Goods Orders. This Census Bureau series dates from 1992 and is not adjusted for either population growth or inflation. Let’s now review the same data with two adjustments. In the charts below the red line show...