The “sell-off” is now two weeks young as red flags are hoisted daily above a mob of jaw dropped spectators, formerly known as the efficient market. There is no absence of questions on the minds of international market forecasters. Instead, we’re hearing vague rhetoric from analysts and financiers that sounds more like confusion than any sort of prediction. The confident ones are still playing the “buy because markets are down” card, but we are taking an alternative, perhaps disagreeable, path.

While history may paint our stance with the heavy brush of criticism, we’re going on the record to call increased volatillity and a lower close on the S&P 500 by week’s end. We feel it is our duty to yell from the rooftops just how treacherous the current developments in world markets have become. While we won’t stamp corny metaphors to the ailing sovereign debt markets, wasting your time with visions of ships and storms, we do pray that readers appreciate the urgency of this week’s Weekly Spectrum.

Crude Oil has reluctantly played follow the leader with U.S. equities for much of the past 12 months. More recently, fundamentals took a back seat to short term speculation as risk takers drove the price of hot button commodities up with stocks. Crude has been in a holding range between $80 and $87/barrel for all of March and April, but in the past two trading sessions NYMEX WTI crude plunged directly from the top to the bottom of that range.

The “bond king” of PIMCO, Bill Gross, tells Bloomberg and the world his strategy on the issue of Greek debt… “Stay away!” In the interview, Gross explains recent moves of the Absolute Return PIMCO fund, including record low holdings of Long Term U.S. debt and increased holdings of “core” European bonds, most notably Germany. Having
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While the phenomenon hasn't received much attention, the Nikkei 225 headline Japanese stock index has diverted course from all other major economic player stock exchanges. The Nikkei turned negative on August 14, 2009 and hasn't been able to resume the congruent pattern that all other major stock market indexes seem to be following. One can
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