It has been another bearish day in the markets as stocks, cryptos and other risk-sensitive assets have all dived. We are seeing repeated failure by the bulls to hold onto any gains in stocks and indices. This is a bear market. This is how it is supposed to be - especially as the economic outlook remains grim. Inflation may have eased a little bit; it is still far...
Along with European markets, Nasdaq futures have managed a small bounce during early European trade, although at the time of writing they were still holding near Tuesday's lows along with tech stocks in extended hours trading, after the index's biggest plunge since the pandemic.
After such a big decline, dip buyers will likely be very nimble today. This means...
Today’s much hotter-than-expected US inflation report has wiped out days of gains for stocks, while the dollar has rallied sharply which in turn has weighed on gold and silver.
Silver rallied to the $20 handle the day before as talks of peak inflation had weighed on the greenback. But the latter stormed back to life after a stronger inflation reading led to...
Cable has had a rough 4-week stretch, shedding over 800 pips from the mid-August high above 1.2200 to trade near 1.1400 earlier this week. In fact, on Wednesday, the pair briefly hit its lowest level since 1985!
Bulls did finally step in to defend that key support level near 1.1415, taking the pair back up to the mid-1.1600s during today’s European session....
Gold has repeatedly hit resistance around the $1725 area. The metal has been struggling all year because of rising interest rate expectations from both side of the Atlantic and a strong US dollar. But with the lack of any further news on inflation and interest rates this week, the metal has been able to climb higher a tad. It briefly poked its head above that...
Ahead of the ECB policy decision, the EUR/USD bounced back quite sharply to turn back positive on the week and rise above parity. Is this the start of a new counter-trend rally or just short-covering ahead of a key risk event? It is worth watching the EUR/USD to see how it fares by the close of play, when traders will have digested the ECB move and Powell's...
Silver couldn’t hold onto its earlier gains as recession concerns around the world continue to boost the appetite for US dollar. Investors are becoming more and more convinced that the Fed is going to raise rates by another 75 basis points this month and proceed with further aggressive hikes until inflation comes back under control.
Silver's price action would...
The world’s oldest cryptoasset has had a quiet week, with prices consolidating in an abnormally tight $1,000 range centered at the key $20,000 level for the last seven days.
In a way, the quiet price action can be viewed as a win of sorts for crypto bulls, given the fact that the typically-correlated Nasdaq 100 index has fallen nearly 3% over the last week, but...
Following the goldilocks jobs report, US stocks rallied and added to their rebound from the second of Thursday's session. However, the markets remain in a longer-term bear trend and are not out of the woods. The Fed is going to be tightening its policy aggressively in coming months, which should put a ceiling on asset prices.
The bears must now wait for the...
Gold and silver are both suffering because of similar reasons: rising interest rate expectations from both side of the Atlantic and a strong US dollar. The latter has underperformed lately due to elevated concerns over the health of the Chinese economy where the nation’s zero-COVID policy and energy issues have hit the sector. But overall, it is all about monetary...
Eurozone CPI came in hotter than expected this morning, hitting a record high of 9.1% year-over-year. Despite worries about surging energy prices (up 38% y/y, even before cold winter weather arrives) driving the continent into recession, the ECB will be forced to act aggressively to fight inflation at next week’s monetary policy meeting; indeed, economists at both...
EUR/USD made headlines for briefly dropping below parity (1.00) for the first time in nearly 20 years in mid-July, then again throughout most of last week’s trade, but the pair is starting this week’s trade on a bullish note as it peeks above that key psychological level.
Interestingly, the pair’s RSI indicator is showing a bullish divergence with rates over...
The Nasdaq 100 index rallied nearly 25% off the June lows to last week’s peak, but sellers have aggressively pushed prices down in recent days, leaving the index testing a key previous support/resistance zone around 12,900. This area put a floor under prices in March and April, and once the index broke below it, it acted as resistance in early June;...
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is rallying today, helped along by a story that OPEC+ was considering cutting production if/when Iran’s production started to hit the market, reducing fears of continued oversupply in the coming months.
From a technical perspective, the selloff in WTI has stopped exactly where experienced technicians might have expected: At...
Risk aversion is the dominant theme to start this week’s trade, and for FX traders, that means broad-based strength in the US dollar.
Mirroring the situation in the European mainland, the UK economy is facing elevated inflation and a slowing (likely soon to be contracting) economy. In the coming months, the BOE is likely to prioritize raising interest rates to...
After trailing this summer’s recovery rally in the correlated Nasdaq 100, Bitcoin is now underperforming the tech-heavy index to the downside.
After testing its 50-day EMA last week, BTC/USD is currently trading down by 8% on the day to approach its 1-month low in the $20,750 area. More importantly, the cryptocurrency is set to break below the rising channel off...
After today's disappointing Chinese and US macro data and the slump in crude oil, bond yields have slumped as investors have further priced in "peak inflation" amid recession risks.
The US 10-year yield broke out of its bear channel a couple of sessions ago, which was bad news for low-yielding assets. But it has now gone back inside that channel, meaning the...
Bitcoin and other cryptos remain supported.
BTC formed an inverted doji/shooting star candle off resistance around $24,600 on Thursday, which looked rather bearish. However, we have not seen any significant downside follow-through, suggesting Thursday's price action was driven by profit-taking than intense short-selling.
Thus, I think BTC will go on to take out...
