No, the important economic event of the week was not the snail like progress towards solution of the European debt debacle. It was the weekly jobless claims announced on Thursday that plunged 23,000 to 381,000, a six month low. That puts it well below the 400,000 level where the economy is generally thought to be
Having the flu during the holidays is the pits. This weekend, I blew my nose at the Cirque du Soliel so loudly that is perilously distracted some of the high wire acrobats. I coughed and hacked my way through the San Francisco Ballet?s Nutcracker Suite. Even the eggnog is utterly tasteless, no matter how much
?I don?t know where the next 1,000 points is coming from, but I know where the next 10,000 points is coming from,? said Sir John Templeton, when he was playing chess with me at his home at Lyford Cay in the Bahamas many years ago.
Given the failure of the ?RISK OFF? trade to develop any serious downside momentum this week, I am using the dip this morning to take a small profit on my S&P 500 ETF (SPY) puts. We had every reason to go down, given the Standard and Poor?s threatened European debt downgrade on Monday night. If
?You are either looking out five days or five years in this market. You?re either a surfer or a yacht. There are no small boats anymore,? said Bob Iaccino, a trader at Your trading room.com.
Have you ever wanted to spend your summers basking in the sunlight at your mountain top Tuscan villa, surveying the manicured vineyards which produce your own estate bottled wine? Are you drawn by the cachet of claiming George Clooney as a celebrity neighbor on the model strewn shores of Lake Como? How about a luxury
I am pulling the plug on my short position in the Euro here, selling my Euro ETF (FXE) January, 2012 $134 puts at cost. It?s not that I have suddenly fallen in love with the beer drinkers and the garlic eaters. This is an option driven decision. With market volatility falling across all asset classes,
?Europe is in the terminal phase of its life,? said David Murrin of Emergent Asset Management.
Take a look at the charts below, and you will see what prompted me to knock out some shorts on the S&P 500 (SPY) on Friday. The longer the current trading range in the index works, the more traders pile into it, confining it to an ever narrowing range. I am even hearing that fundamental
I heard the magic words today from German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy: ?treaty changes?. That will be the gist of their joint proposal at the European summit this coming Friday to deal with the sovereign debt crisis. To me, this means that the two besieged leaders are finally biting the bullet