Wednesday market outlook

Interesting times we`re trading in. The markets are screaming for an impeding correction, but as the global printing press pumps liquidity into the markets the game of musical chairs has no choice but to continue. What will happen when the music stops and all these injections will prove they have diminishing returns? Until then, let`s take a look on what the markets did this week: gold has managed to hold the bullish channel it entered on the 22nd of February, the S&P looks like a rabid bull and the effects of Bank of Japan`s massive intervention on the yen seems to be wearing off.

China opened the flood doors by cutting reserve requirements

When the world screams for liquidity (shown by the increasing inter-banking swap rates), China comes to the rescue by lowering the reserve requirements and therefore unleashing a new wave of cheap money into the system. The markets responded very quick to this Chinese monetary stimulus, with equity and commodities spiking up, in a risk-on trade. Furthermore, in a following move, most of the leading Central Banks are now receiving USD swaps by 50 basis points less. Result: cheaper money.

Precious metals leap forward as contagion spreads to Italy

  

Now that the waters have cleared for a bit in Greece, where Prime-minister Papandreou is going to form an unprecedented national unity government to push further budget cuts, the European bond vigilantes apparently have started to target the next weakest chain: Italy. The yields on 10 year Italian sovereign debt surged to 6.56% after reaching a record 6.68%. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will be under-fire tomorrow as the parliament will vote on a state financing bill. His majority within the parliament is weaker by the day and rumors that he would resign hit today's news, only to cause a prompt dismissal.Who is going to bail-out Italy in case it fails? EFSF which receives 140 billion euro in guarantees from Italy ?

Gold soars, as the European bailout is back on track

Investors were reminded once again today that there are no golden pennies lying on the sidewalk, as gold shed all concerns and manged to pull itself up to the 1763 level. Not very nice for me since I exited all my gold positions at 1755. Silver went pretty much through the same lines as the other precious metals, rising today from $34.02 to $34.50, in what seems to be a rather anemic movement. The main drivers today was ECB's rate cut and (again) turmoil on the Greek political scene as Papandreou succesfully bluffed most of media with his resignation story.

Precious metals rebound as global uncertainty deepens

Gold managed to break out from its bearish flag formation and sailed right through the $1700 level. Silver, on the other hand, is still within the bearish flag and at the moment is struggling to push through the $33.4 level. For long term investors this is a confirmation of the long term trend in gold and silver (which is here to stay), but for short term investors this may prove to be a good opportunity to reap a few profits by going short.

Qvo vadis, Gold ?

The precious metals have been under fire recently, with gold dropping from its all-time high of $1920 close to its 200 daily Exponential Moving Average which acted as support level for such movements since early 2008. It spiked downwards beneath the 200d EMA for a brief period to its recent low of $1533 after quickly recovering ground and consolidating in the $1610-$1690 interval.

Market Talk: Risk-off day in all major asset classes

A sharp reaction from the financial markets came today after the participants expect further economic turmoil. US Stocks slump as the Goldman Sachs reported its second quarterly loss in almost 12 years and as IBM shows signs of weekness. Commodities drop, precious metals leading with Gold down 2.46%, and silver down 1.86%. Just a Manic Monday.

Yuan closer to reserve currency status

Even though the Chinese currency, the Yuan (or Renminbi), is still pegged to the current reserve currency, the Chinese officials are taking more and more steps towards consolidating the global role of Yuan. One of them is the long term purchase of gold, as the saying goes, with every dip, there is Chinese gold buying. The second step is to start offering gold in Yuan. The next step can only be denominating the yuan in gold and restricting yuan purchases.

Are Gold and Silver still alpha investments ?

After the recent slump in precious metals, with gold falling from its all time high of $1920 to $1532, an almost 21% percent drop in less than a week there is a growing concern that the 11 years precious metals bull market is coming a close. Silver looks like it has been drop-kicked twice and there is significant chart damage in the upward trend. Investors are beginning to wonder if this is the sign of a market top.

How is inflation created and what can be done about it ?

The debate on the real cause of inflation, and whether its positive effects outweigh the negative ones  is growing steam, with the talks of more Quantitative Easing under way. Is QE3 going to generate more inflation or not? Is the view that QE and further market operations (POMOs) will fuel the increase in prices ?

To answer these questions, one has to start from the root of the problem. What is inflation and how should it be measured ?

Gold and Silver in upward trend as Bernanke considers more QE

The Federal Reserve released  the minutes of the September 20-21 session in which there is talk of more monetary stimulus.  Fed officials are considering further large scale asset purchases (QE3) as a form of boosting the economy due to “the considerable uncertainty” in the US growth prospects.

Marc Faber: Americans need to tighten their belts and save more

Marc Faber, the well known author of the GloomBoomDoom Report, and widely regarded as one of the investors who predicted the 2008 crisis, has declared in a recent interview on CNBC: 

"I will tell you what the US needs.  The US needs a Lee Kwan Yew who stands in front of the US  and tells them, listen you lazy bugger, now you have to tighten your belts, you have to save more, work more for lower salaries and only through that will we get out of the current dilemma that essentially prevents the economy from growing."

Smoke and mirrors in finance and investment

This blog is created to provide quality economic, financial and investment analysis. Whilst sometimes focusing on macroeconomics or microeconomics, the clear tendency is to stick to down-to-earth common sense.

In the investment world, as you may know, common sense is not so common.