Pull the trigger with confidence.

Silver prices have been following gold's lead, pushing up to new all-time highs in 2025.  Silver's chart is a great picture of an uptrend, and you only want to fight an uptrend if you have a really good reason.  Some data from the latest COT Report might be that reason.

The Commitment of Traders (COT) Report is published every Friday by the CFTC.  It lists the quantities of futures contracts held by different groups of traders.  The latest COT Report had 332 different types of futures... Read More

The FOMC in June elected not to cut its interest rate target, even though inflation data are coming in lower than feared.  Their claim is that they don't know what the inflationary effects of tariffs are going to be.  We already have the lowest annual CPI inflation rate since Covid.  That’s the good news, but whether it is good enough to convince the Fed to cut at the July 29-30 meeting is a different question.

The FOMC members are likely unaware that there is a 5.31-year cycle operating in... Read More

The strong breadth since the April 8, 2025 tariff crash low has produced a new all-time high for the NYSE's daily A-D Line.  It has also taken the the Ratio-Adjusted Summation Index (RASI) up above the important +500 threshold.  These two conditions are almost always a recipe for uptrend continuation.  This time might be different.

Normally gobs of breadth is a really great thing for the stock market.  It is a sign that liquidity is plentiful, because if even the least deserving stocks can... Read More

Elon Musk is famously having a feud with President Trump this week, which is getting a lot of media attention.  As one of the salvos in this feud, Musk posted on X that, "The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year."

I agree with the forecast, although not necessarily the causation he sites.  If a recession was going to happen anyway, and if tariffs make it worse, then did the tariffs "cause" the recession?  That is a rhetorical question, for which there never... Read More

Crude oil prices peaked on January 15, 2025, just before the inauguration of President Trump, when expectations were running high for strong economic growth.  The economy has not turned out that way thus far, and oil prices have fallen to multiyear lows.

One effect of that has been that the large "backwardation" in crude oil futures in January has now receded.  Backwardation is a term referring to the condition where the near month price for any type of futures contract is higher than the... Read More

The University of Michigan has been conducting its survey of consumer sentiment since 1955.  They made big news last week when they announced that the preliminary reading for the month of May 2025 (reflecting only partial readings for the month) was at 50.8. That is one of the lowest readings in the survey’s history, and it reflects the uncertainty that the consumers are feeling in the first months of President Trump’s term, especially with all of the tariff battles. 

This week's chart... Read More

Last week I noted how the 5-day moving average of the daily CBOE Put/Call Volume Ratio was down to a low level, indicating a lot of optimism among options traders.  That optimism has not yet been punished by the stock market, and indeed we are seeing even lower readings now, both for the 5MA and for the daily readings.

The daily reading on May 14 of 0.696 was the lowest since January 17, 2025, when inauguration day optimism was riding high and the installation of President Trump was... Read More

At the bottom of the "Liberation Day" Trump Tariff Crash, sentiment was very bearish with a lot of options traders favoring put options versus calls.  That sent the 5-day simple moving average of the daily Put/Call Volume Ratio to its highest reading since August 2024, which was when a rate hike by the Bank of Japan scared everyone by disrupting the "yen carry trade". 

Prices have rebounded nicely since the April 8, 2025 low, and with that price rebound there has also been a rebound in... Read More