What We're Reading

Ran across this post and found it interesting although anything that's only been around 7-1/2 years is truly untested but only time will tell.  All eyes are on Congress for a break in taxes for the wealthy, as well as 'stumbles' from our leader and chief, Mr. Trump.  Between the Russia investigation and foreign relations (yikes!) the tension is building, or at least being applied by the left.  Will they reach the proportions where firms hit the 'sell' button? I have to say that September is coming -  the worst month for the market thanks to Mutual Fund profit taking at end of fiscal year.  Anything is possible.  Enjoy the ride.  From LyonsShare:

Sentiment indicators can be useful tools for investors, mainly on a contrarian basis. That is, generally when readings get overly bullish, it may signal a lack of remaining buyers in the market and vulnerability to a decline in prices. Conversely, when sentiment is extremely bearish, it is often a sign that selling has been overdone and prices

Past tense; that is.  A big move is coming in the S&P 500 and it will take everyone’s breath away. Simply put: The S&P 500 has traded in a multi-year consolidation range with a high of 2134 and a low of 1810. A breakout or breakdown out of this range could result in a measured technical move of the height of the range, i.e. 2134 – 1810 = 324 handles. Consequently a break toward the upside would target 2458 (15% above all time highs) and conversely a breakdown would target 1486 and represent a 30.4% correction off of all time highs.

I’ve outlined the bear arguments in detail in Feeding the Monster, so I won’t bother rehashing them here. However, in analyzing the larger market structures an interesting duality is emerging: A fight for control between the historic precedence of earnings and technicals and a very much divergent development in money supply, one of the key drivers behind stock prices since the financial crisis.

This duality can be summarized in one chart:

Speaking for a bre

As polls continue to swing around ahead of the Swiss gold referendum on 30^th November, we expect increased volatility in the FX and gold market.  After the implementation of the EURCHF floor, gold’s share of the SNB balance sheet has fallen to 7.5% from around 30% in 2007 (top chart).  The SNB has already pointed out the untenable nature of the peg should the referendum pass, but the impact on the gold market would also be significant.  Taking the current balance sheet of 522bn CHF and spot gold prices, the requirement to hold at least 20% of assets in gold would necessitate buying 1,800 tonnes of gold over 5 years.  Total global production in 2013 was 2,982 tonnes, thus the SNB would need to buy at least 10% of the annual production every year for the next 5 years.

The bottom chart shows the latest composition of the SNB’s FX reserves.  The requirement to buy gold will necessitate selling reserves, mainly EUR (which makes up 45% of all reserves).  Should these euro selling flows come