Volatility expectations took record jumps during Wednesday’s “big” selloff. Last Wednesday saw the stock market break out of its historically tight trading range – and it did so in dramatic fashion. After, for example, trading in a 16-day low-high range of barely 1%, the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) nearly doubled that…
Recent leader, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (INDEXNYSEGIS:EMX), is hitting a major confluence of resistance at the moment. One theme we’ve been all over in 2017 is the good relative performance of international markets. That includes emerging markets, individually and collectively, as measured by the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EM)….
Amid geopolitical turmoil, the South Korean KOSPI just hit a new all-time high. If one was using news headlines in order to direct their investment decisions, South Korea would probably be one of the last options on their list. Given the tantrum currently being thrown in North Korea, intuition might…
A few weeks back, I noted a near-term challenge facing Germany’s major stock market index: The German DAX (INDEXDB:DAX). A furious 4-month, 20% rally had brought the index precisely to the level of its 2015 all-time highs just south of 12.400. How would the index react? As we noted in that…
Commercial hedgers have never had a larger net short position in silver futures. We talk about investor sentiment fairly often in these pages. Of course, sentiment analysis is well known for its “contrarian” nature, i.e., that “fading” the crowd often ends up being the correct move. What folks often get…
Long-term chart resistance may slow the pace of the European stock rally. We have been noting of late the relative improvement among international equity markets. This even includes a recent pickup in the perpetual laggard, Europe. Now, there are several markets in Europe that, in our view, actually look very…
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) – 2 important generals of the market rally – are undergoing similar tests of their uptrends. Over the past week, we’ve seen the stock market (and stock market leaders) tested moreso than any other point since the post-election rally kicked off. Some of the recent…
Three metrics that normally fare well in healthy bull markets are faltering; but how serious is it? We’ve been talking about a few sneaky barometers of “risk on/risk off” markets for a few weeks now. To clarify, stocks typically rally, and on firm footing, when these metrics are favorable as they indicate…
The S&P 500’s record streak without a ‘weak’ close came to an end Thursday; what does it mean for stocks going forward? By any name – melt-up, relentless bid, creep, etc. – the recent advance in the stock market has been impressive. And there is no shortage of statistical means by…
The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) never traded below its 2016 closing price during January; prior such cases have been very positive harbingers for the stock market…mostly. January was an exceptionally placid month in the stock market. With the various year-end/new year dynamics that are often at play, it is typical to…
