Today is flip-flop day. I’m not talking about shoes you’d wear to the beach, I’m talking about the day when the front month of the S&P futures contract moves from December to March. Any of you who are players in the futures market on a day-to-day basis know that on flip-flop day, there’s a lot [...]

Folks, the bond vigilantes have moved their focus from Greece to Italy. Italian bonds slumped, driving 2-, 5-, 10- and 30-year yields to euro-era records after LCH Clearnet SA raised the deposit it demands for trading the nation’s securities. This has caused a global margin call that’s resulted in liquidation of everything—stocks, commodities, etc. The [...]

Folks, I’ve received a number of emails in response to  my post last week about what to do if you have an MF Global account that’s been frozen. I wanted to take this opportunity to reiterate that I’m a former board member at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and I know this world very well—if you [...]

Folks, I’m making my way back to Chicago today after taking part in yesterday’s Biz 880 Miami Money Expo. Big thanks to Bull & Bear Institute, Currensee, Daniel “The MoneyMan” Frishberg, Charles Schwab and everyone who came out for making the event a rousing success. All the presentations and breakout sessions on stocks, futures, real [...]

Well, folks, we had a nice firm opening this morning after yesterday’s Greek-inspired selloff, and it feels like at least some of the fear may be behind us. The bounce today is important—it will tell us whether we’ve weathered the storm. Don’t read too much into it unless it continues into the afternoon, because this [...]

Folks, there is global selloff taking place, and I have to tell you, this one caught me by surprise. I’m usually the one waiting for that thing that comes out of left field, but I definitely didn’t expect this. Right now, it’s looking like all bets might be off for that year-end melt-up scenario I’ve [...]

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 [...]

Well, folks, we didn’t quite make that 500-point gain in the Dow yesterday, but we did see one of the biggest moves in equities in quite a while thanks to that perfect storm of events, capping off what appears will be a very, very big month. I was looking at some numbers, and if we [...]

Folks, as I’m sure you’ve seen by now, we are in the midst of a power move. The markets opened with a bang this morning, and early in the session it’s shaping up like it could be one of those days where we close 500 points higher in the Dow. I’m calling this a melt-up [...]

Folks, we’re coming up on the end of what has been an exceptionally strong month. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen tremendous moves in equities—the Dow shot up more than 9%, the NASDAQ more than 11% and the S&P more than 10%. After a run like that, we want to see the market stop [...]