Its all Greek today on the Jack B. Show. Alan Rohrbach joins in the discussion with Jack and Sara. Technical and psychological views of the markets are given with special attention paid to China, Gold, the Aussie Dollar and S&Ps. Click here to listen to this podcast
Some more positive numbers in housing came out today. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index was at 21, the first time that builders’ confidence improved three straight months since 2009. Of course, with real-estate in this country so interconnected with employment, I’m not taking this as a sign that we’re seeing [...]
As I write this, the March gold contract is trading around 1607, down more than 3% on the day. This downward pressure is coming from central bankers who need to raise money by the end of the year but can’t sell off their debt (bonds)—and all they have left that’s liquid is gold. I’m bullish [...]
Imagine you’re riding in the back seat of a car. Your friend is driving, and it’s storming outside. You assume that he’s going the right speed, checking his blind spot, following the car in front of him at a safe distance. You know there’s a possibility that at any second he could be swerving all [...]
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,” [...]
In case you missed the big news, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ last Friday. This is the first time since the credit-ratings agencies started back in 1917 that the America’s debt has been downgraded. Make no mistake, folks: this decision was a political statement, not a financial one. [...]
Folks, the earnings reports keep coming in and corporations keep on beating the Street. GE, Chrysler, Xerox, Verizon and McDonalds are just a few of the companies that topped estimates, much to the delight of the market. Caterpillar missed by a just a little, but by and large, corporations are reporting very good profits. While [...]
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, first it was Greece, now it’s Italy. More bad news about debt problems in the Eurozone caused the market to open down about 1% across the board this morning. I’ve been talking for a while about how the flow of funds from Europe affects U.S. equity markets. European fund managers get news like this [...]