Many of the lessons that I learned in trading the markets were learned from my old mentor, Bing Sun, who went from being a boy genius to an academic at Harvard to running the multi-billion-dollar Harvard Endowment Fund. After he left the fund, I became his assistant on the floor at the CME. Spending hours [...]
Housing remains in focus today, with starts rebounding to 9.3% and permits up 6%. Both of those numbers are much better than expected, and the market seems to like them early in today’s session. But they’re also not telling us the whole story. As nice as those numbers may sound, the fact is that a [...]
Well folks, Jon Corzine, former New Jersey governor and head of MF Global, made what in our world is called a bad trade. He bought the PIIGS and sold France against it, essentially doing to Man what he did to the Garden State. Only this time, there is no Chris Christie to come to the [...]
Folks, Alcoa is scheduled to report its Q3 numbers after the markets close today, unofficially kicking off earnings season. I mentioned yesterday how I believe that another 2008 has been unnecessarily priced into things, so I’m excited to see just how much the lowering of expectations will cost the market as far as the price-earnings [...]
Folks, I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve learned that there are traders’ markets and there are investors’ markets. As the nervous condition continues and the aftershocks from Monday’s pullback are compounded by problems at European banks, this market environment has become unsuitable for traders—you simply cannot properly manage risk when there’s this kind [...]
Well, folks, what do you say after a day like yesterday? Watching the market drama in the wake of S&P’s downgrade of U.S. debt, I was reminded of something an old floor trader, Sam Shanker, said to me back when I was just a young punk at the CME. “When there’s blood in the streets,” [...]
Folks, the European contagion issue seems to have settled down on news that the European Central Bank will hold an emergency summit on Friday. Is this contagion issue over? Absolutely not. But Friday’s meeting might help to quell the panic in the French institutions. The French are the largest holders of Italian bonds, which means [...]
Folks, as I was watching overnight movement between 2am and 4am Chicago time—yes, I wake up throughout the night to check the markets—it looked like we might be in for an Armageddon-type day thanks to the situation over in Europe. “Contagion” was the buzzword of the morning, and fear and panic were setting in. The [...]
Folks, back when I was trading on the floor of the CME, I was surrounded by some of the best traders in the world. One of those traders was a man named Bing Sung, a brilliant guy who went from being a Harvard academic to helping to run the Harvard Endowment Fund. He was a [...]
Folks, my good friend, Jeff Carter, joined me on the broadcast today. Jeff is an independent trader who’s also a commentator for CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox. He writes the wonderful blog pointsandfigures.com, which I highly recommend. Years ago he and I sat on the board of the CME together, where we helped usher in the electronic [...]