Tag Archive: Chart Update

Simple Math of Bank Horse-Puckey

2017-04-23

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2017-04-23

Sky from Mt. Wilson
We stepped out on our front stoop Wednesday morning and paused to take it all in. The sky was at its darkest hour just before dawn. The air was crisp. There was a soft coastal fog. The faint light of several stars that likely burned out millennia ago danced just above the glow of the street lights.

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LIBOR Pains

2017-04-01

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2017-04-01

If one searches for news on LIBOR (=London Interbank Offered Rate, i.e., the rate at which banks lend dollars to each other in the euro-dollar market), they are currently dominated by Deutsche Bank getting slapped with a total fine of $775 million for the part it played in manipulating the benchmark rate in collusion with other banks (fine for one count of wire fraud: US$150 m.; additional shakedown by US Justice Department: US$625 m., the price...

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Gold Sector: Positioning and Sentiment

2017-03-17

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2017-03-17

HUI Near Term Support Resistance, 2016 - 2017
When last we wrote about the gold sector in mid February, we discussed historical patterns in the HUI following breaches of its 200-day moving average from below. Given that we expected such a breach to occur relatively soon, the post turned out to be rather ill-timed. Luckily we always advise readers that we are not exactly Nostradamus (occasionally our timing is a bit better).

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They’re Worried You Might Buy Bitcoin or Gold – Precious Metals Supply and Demand

2017-03-07

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2017-03-07

Bitcoin wallet
Keith Weiner's weekly look on Gold. Gold and silver prices, Gold-Silver Price Ratio, Gold basis and co-basis and the dollar price, Silver basis and co-basis and the dollar price.

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Speculative Blow-Offs in Stock Markets – Part 2

2017-03-07

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2017-03-07

On-Margin
As noted in Part 1, historically, blow-patterns in stock markets share many characteristics. One of them is a shifting monetary backdrop, which becomes more hostile just as prices begin to rise at an accelerated pace, the other is the psychological backdrop to the move, which entails growing pressure on the remaining skeptics and helps investors to rationalize their exposure to overvalued markets.

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Speculative Blow-Offs in Stock Markets – Part 1

2017-03-06

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2017-03-06

Brokers
Why is the stock market seemingly so utterly oblivious to the potential dangers and in some respects quite obvious fundamental problems the global economy faces? Why in particular does this happen at a time when valuations are already extremely stretched? Questions along these lines are raised increasingly often by our correspondents lately. One could be smug about it and say “it’s all technical”, but there is more to it than that. It may not be...

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Gold Sector Update – What Stance is Appropriate?

2017-02-26

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2017-02-26

HUI Compared to Gold September 2015 - February 2017
We wanted to post an update to our late December post on the gold sector for some time now (see “Gold – Ready to Spring Another Surprise?” for the details). Perhaps it was a good thing that some time has passed, as the current juncture seems particularly interesting. We received quite a few mails from friends and readers recently, expressing concern about the inability of gold stocks to lead, or even confirm strength in gold of late. In light of...

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Incrementum Advisory Board Meeting, Q1 2017 and Some Additional Reflections

2017-02-09

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2017-02-09

Yuan Onshore Weekly
The quarterly meeting of the Incrementum Advisory Board was held on January 11, approximately one month ago. A download link to a PDF document containing the full transcript including charts an be found at the end of this post. As always, a broad range of topics was discussed; although some time has passed since the meeting, all these issues remain relevant.

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US Financial Markets – Alarm Bells are Ringing

2017-01-18

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2017-01-18

When discussing the outlook for so-called “risk assets”, i.e., mainly stocks and corporate bonds (particularly low-grade bonds) and their counterparts on the “safe haven” end of the spectrum (such as gold and government bonds with strong ratings), one has to consider different time frames and the indicators applicable to these time frames.

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Gold – Ready to Spring Another Surprise

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

Treasure Chest
Below is an update of a number of interesting data points related to the gold market. Whether “interesting” will become “meaningful” remains to be seen, as most of gold’s fundamental drivers aren’t yet bullishly aligned.

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The Exiling of Risk

2016-12-17

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2016-12-17

NAAIM Exposure Index, SPX
A Quick Chart Overview Below is an overview of charts we picked to illustrate the current market situation. The selection is a bit random, but not entirely so. The first set of charts concerns positioning and sentiment. As one would expect, these look fairly stretched at the moment, but there are always ways in which they could become even more stretched. First a look at the NAAIM exposure index.

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US True Money Supply Growth Jumps, Part 1: A Shift in Liabilities

2016-12-06

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2016-12-06

TMS-2 and Total Loans and Leases YoY change
The growth rates of various “Austrian” measures of the US money supply (such as TMS-2 and money AMS) have accelerated significantly in recent months. That is quite surprising, as the Fed hasn’t been engaged in QE for quite some time and year-on-year growth in commercial bank credit has actually slowed down rather than accelerating of late. The only exception to this is mortgage lending growth – at least until recently. Growth in mortgage loans is...

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Inflation Expectations Rise Sharply

2016-11-16

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2016-11-16

WIN
We have witnessed truly astonishing short term market conniptions following the Donald Trump’s election victory. In this post we want to focus on one aspect that seems to be exercising people quite a bit at present, namely the recent surge in inflation expectations reflected in the markets. Will we have to get those WIN buttons out again?

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Dissection of the Long-Term Asset Bubble

2016-11-12

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2016-11-12

The Long Term Outlook for the Asset Bubble Due to strong internals, John Hussman has given the stock market rally since the February low the benefit of the doubt for a while. Lately he has returned to issuing warnings about the market’s potential to deliver a big negative surprise once it runs out of greater fools.

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Stock Market Volatility, Gold and the Election

2016-11-08

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2016-11-08

Comey and the Trio Infernal
Before this Monday, the S&P 500 Index went down nine days in a row. While this was almost unprecedented (or in any case, a very rare event) the decline was quite small overall. The timing of the pullback and the subsequent strong rebound on Monday suggests that Mr.

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Gold Sector Correction – Where Do Things Stand?

2016-10-11

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2016-10-11

gold bullion
When we last discussed the gold sector correction (which had only just begun at the time), we mentioned we would update sentiment and positioning data on occasion. For a while, not much changed in these indicators, but as one would expect, last week’s sharp sell-off did in fact move the needle a bit.

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Japan’s Planners Ratchet up Monetary Experimentation

2016-09-26

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2016-09-26

It was widely expected that the BoJ would announce something this week after it promised to perform a comprehensive review of its monetary policy. It certainly did deliver a major tweak to its inflationary program, but its implications were seemingly not entirely clear to everybody (probably not even to the BoJ).

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Gold Sector Correction – What Happens Next?

2016-09-01

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2016-09-01

The gathering of central planners at Jackson Hole was widely expected to bring some clarity regarding the Fed’s policy intentions. This is of course a ridiculous assumption, since these people have not the foggiest idea what they are doing or what they are going to do next. Like all central planners, they are forever groping in the dark.

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Gold Trends: The Myth of Leverage

2016-08-23

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2016-08-23

Gold has gone up >400% over the last 16 years. Ironically, it is hard to find a gold mining equity exhibiting similar performance. In retrospect, if one invested in gold, one not only made much better returns, one also took a relatively insignificant risk in comparison to owning equities—equities can go to zero while it is hard for a commodity to fall much below its cost of production.

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Insanity, Oddities and Dark Clouds in Credit-Land

2016-08-15

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2016-08-15

Insanity Rules Bond markets are certainly displaying a lot of enthusiasm at the moment – and it doesn’t matter which bonds one looks at, as the famous “hunt for yield” continues to obliterate interest returns across the board like a steamroller.

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