U.S. stocks looked unusually strong on Friday as two major factors concerning short term risk in global markets changed dramatically. The stagnant housing market and uncertainty over a viable path to solvency in Greece, which have been weighing heavily on global markets, seem to be less threatening if Friday’s data were judge. Technicals remain extremely overbought in commodities and equities as markets now face Bernanke and Q1 GDP this week.

Supporting our highest conviction trade yet, we now see fundamentals, sentiment, and technicals aligned for a significant correction in Crude Oil prices. While DS partners already hold a position in DTO, we are moving to formally call a short term WTI Crude Continuous Spot price target at $70. Below we explain in detail our thesis
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The January 18 – 22 business week will begin one day late, due to Martin Luther King Jr holiday, leaving only Tuesday to Friday for market action to be staged. The most notable economic data releases will be the Housing Market Index (HMI) and Housing Starts numbers; while Treasury International Capital data, the Producer's Price
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Crude Oil The oil issue has been speculative to this point. It's hard to argue against 90 dollar oil when we saw 145 in July 2008, but the fundamentals aren't congruent with the price growth we've seen and this trader finds it easier to argue FOR $60/ barrel oil. Crude supply in the U.S. remains
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Earnings season officially began, as the first member of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average to grab Q4 2009 earnings headlines, Alcoa (AA), reported a net profit of $0.01 EPS on Monday, January 11. The shortfall to the $0.06 EPS market consensus was explained by CEO Klaus Kleinfield by the unexpected weakness in the dollar,
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The Institute for Supply Chain Management surprised the world on Monday morning, as they announced the results of their manufacturing managers survey. The report is essentially a survey where every manager is asked to respond to his own experience. Each manager states whether they see conditions improving, deteriorating or remaining constant, with respect to thirteen main criteria. The December survey’s
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Few expect the U.S. Federal Reserve's FOMC to announce any change to the current monetary policy. The Fed Funds rate target is expected to stay at 0.25%, despite effective rates closer to 0.1%, while language will promise that purchase programs of private debt and Fannie/Freddie mortgage products are soon to wind down. Conditions of the
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Last week you could have thrown a dart onto the floor of the CME and almost assuredly poked the eye out of a commodity bull. This week there's no telling who you'd maim. Blood and gore aside, the sideways pattern of the past three weeks is over as far as crude oil is concerned. The
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Dow components Caterpillar (CAT) and DuPont (DD) are draining the will of investors to remain vested shareholders, as CAT posted its first loss since 1992 and Dupont lowered its 2009 guidance. U.S. stocks weren't the only misfortuned securities Tuesday morning, as crude oil future prices for May and June delivery felt immense downward pressure below
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Thursday morning the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) announced a change to the mark to market accounting standard, technically known as FASB Recommendation 157. Under new accounting rules banks will be allowed to value the toxic paper tied to mortgages based on cash flow valuations rather than fair market prices. Many mortgage backed assets are
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