Pull the trigger with confidence.

Crude oil prices are showing at least a short term topping condition now, based on seeing the near month (February 2025) contract price well above that of January 2026.  This produces the big spread that you see in this week's chart., which says that prices have become stretched to the upside.

Any futures contract represents 2 positions simultaneously, one long and one short, each held by different people.  The short position holder is obligated to "deliver" the specified amount of the... Read More

Bitcoin is the modern era's #1 speculative trading asset.  But the public mood waxes and wanes concerning enthusiasm toward Bitcoin, just like any other type of speculative vehicle.  There is nothing like seeing Bitcoin prices zooming up to new all time highs to get everyone excited, and that excitement shows up in traders deciding to play in the Bitcoin futures market.  Participation in a particular futures market is measured using data on "open interest", which refers to the total number of... Read More

Back on Nov. 14, 2024, I noted in a Chart In Focus article that the current market's price path was looking a lot like both 1964 and 1980.  It seems appropriate to review the progress since then.  This week's chart looks again at that 1980 comparison.

1980 was when President Reagan defeated the incumbent President Jimmy Carter to win election.  Reagan's victory was both anticipated and celebrated by Wall Street, as he was seen as a "transformative" candidate with the promise of solving all... Read More

The recent 4-day up move in gold futures prices has produced an interesting overbought condition that is worth talking about.  This week's chart is one I featured recently in my Daily Edition, talking about how when gold gets to a short term overbought condition like this it is a pretty good marker of a short term top.  Gold has since started dropping out of that overbought condition.

Our Short Term Price Oscillator (STPO) is a variation on the regular McClellan Price Oscillator, which is... Read More

Longtime readers know that I do a lot of research related to the Presidential Cycle Pattern, which is based on the premise that the stock market shows a lot of similarity to the same points in prior presidential terms.  The PCP is calculated by averaging together the price history of the SP500 in 4-year chunks of time.

There are also different permutations one can create for the PCP, such as for Republican vs. Democrat presidents (which is not very useful) and for first term presidents... Read More

It should not be a surprise that lower quality corporate bonds pay a higher yield than the best quality ones.  Investors will pay a premium for better quality, and that drives down the yields on investment grade corporate bonds.  Junkier ones have to pay higher yields in order to attract investors.

This week's lead chart shows a comparison between the average yields on bonds rated as Aaa (investment grade) by Moody's, and Baa which are described by Moody's as being "subject to moderate... Read More

The elections are now over and decided, and thankfully we don't have any "dimpled chad" problems like in 2000, so the new administration can get to work implementing its agenda.  The members of that new administration probably do not know that rising unemployment rates are going to be a bigger challenge in 2025. 

This expectation comes from this week's chart, which shows an exotic relationship I have discussed here before.  The fluctuations of the sun's 10.6-year cycle tend to show up after... Read More