The government recently reported that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.2 percent, below the expected 2.5 percent rate.
Bear's Lair
Bear Markets always follow Bull markets and a severe stock market correction is long overdue. Bears Lair will spot, monitor and analyze the stock market correction as it develops.
Over the weekend I had an interesting conversation with a local trader.
It was an interesting week with US markets looking strong briefly, only to show us failed breakouts and then reverse hard along with many leading stocks. Oil was hit hard and the related equities followed.
With the US stock markets surging nearly a third higher in just 6 months, the odds are rising for a major topping. As the best times to sell high, recognizing these events in real-time is very important for traders.
Investors and traders just can't seem to catch a break when it comes to economic news. For example Tuesday in the United States we saw strong ISM manufacturing numbers which surprised the market.
The US Great Depression lasted from 1929 until 1945, but the deflationary phase of the Depression effectively ended in 1932.
It's amazing sometimes how much difference a year can make on investor psychology. For most of last year investors worried incessantly about a potential "double dip" U.S.
We addressed the above question last year and arrived at the answer: no, gold left bargain territory long ago.
I have written (and warned my readers) several times about the weak performance of the HUI index compared to the price of Gold.
It has been sixteen months since my last essay and figured this weekend, just before the April Federal Reserve meeting, that the time is ripe to make an appearance especially with gold sector sentiment so bleak and dreary.
Commodities have been sinking like stones since late February, an unusual divergence from the rallying stock markets.
People wonder why gold is not already say $5000 (it certainly could be) right now, given the fact that the US Fed alone and the US treasury have either given directly or bought (or guaranteed) up to $20 trillion USD worth of world
Gold sentiment is currently at super low levels, which would argue that we are at or near a bottom. The current technicals explain a different story as we try to state below.
Weekly GDX
Gold sentiment is currently at super low levels, which would argue that we are at or near a bottom. The current technicals explain a different story as we try to state below.
Weekly GDX
Considering how popular the term "Quantitative Easing", or "QE" for short, has become, it's remarkable that many commentators on the financial markets appear not to understand what QE is.
Gold has been weathering some considerable selling pressure lately, which has naturally turned sentiment quite pessimistic. Bearish commentary abounds, with all kinds of predictions for further declines.
For eighteen months the HUI has been chopping out a sideways trading range that looked like it had the potential to be a huge consolidation pattern.
It was a down week in US markets but many of the leading stocks held up very well or even moved quite a bit higher in a few cases.
Sellers hammered gold again this week on news from the Fed. The minutes from its latest FOMC meeting convinced traders the odds for a third round of quantitative easing are waning.
The big X-factor for the stock market in the coming months will clearly be China.
When reviewing the long-term performance of the gold sector in previous TSI commentaries we looked at performance in nominal dollar terms and in gold terms, but as far as we can recall we never looked at performance relative to the
"The House of Representatives ... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society.