Friday, March 12,  2010
Chinese consumer confidence rose in February (the things we watch these days!), however Chinese stocks were lower overnight on worries that the government may move more firmly to contain inflation.  A research report from Citibank said that the Chinese may need to bail out banks that made loans to local Chinese governments.  [...]

Thursday, March 11, 2010
Overnight there was a lot of data showing that the Chinese economy is running hot – high inflation and retail sales.  PBOC Governor Zhou and a representative from the Ministry of Commerce both said that inflation will not be a problem this yes.  What do they know that we don’t?  It was [...]

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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OVERNIGHT/EARLY MORNING DEVELOPMENTS

The market features in overnight/early morning trading today are firmer crude oil and gold futures prices.
JIM’S MARKET THOUGHT OF THE DAY *
Most agricultural commodity futures markets have price “seasonality,” whereby prices tend to trend higher or lower at certain times of the year. The seasonality in ag [...]

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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OVERNIGHT/EARLY MORNING DEVELOPMENTS
The market feature in overnight/early morning trading today is a stronger U.S. dollar index and lower crude oil and gold futures prices.
JIM’S MARKET THOUGHT OF THE DAY *
Crude oil prices are under selling pressure today, after having pushed above $82.00 a barrel on Monday. While no near-term [...]

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Yesterday’s lackluster session in the US carried through to muted trading in Asia overnight. Chinese stocks saw small gains on some decent earnings reports, but Chinese traders are waiting for a number of economic releases due Thursday. European stocks were lower on concerns over the banking system. Fitch made [...]

Monday, March 8, 2010
I have fantastic news to report this week.  The XGD has formed a powerful buy signal indicating that the way forward is up again for the Australian gold sector.  I have shown this signal in the daily XGD chart below with some resistance levels overhead which we are currently cutting through with [...]

Monday, March 8, 2010
There wasn’t much news overnight, and the beginning of the week will be light on economic releases.  There were lots of Chinese officials speaking last night, but not necessarily much to trade off today.  PBOC Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said that the Yuan / Dollar peg is a temporary measure in response to [...]

Monday, March 8, 2010
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OVERNIGHT/EARLY MORNING DEVELOPMENTS
There is no standout market feature in quieter overnight/early morning trading today.
JIM’S MARKET THOUGHT OF THE DAY *
Trading in the U.S. dollar index and Euro currency futures has turned more sideways and choppy recently. Still, there are no solid, early technical clues to suggest the Euro currency [...]

Friday, March 5, 2010
February NFP was a bit better than expected at -36K.  At the beginning of the week the estimate was for -20K, but it kept dropping during the week; I saw an average estimate of -70K yesterday.  There was a slight downward revision to the Jan NFP.  This was a friendly number for [...]

Friday, March 5, 2010
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OVERNIGHT/EARLY MORNING DEVELOPMENTS

There is no standout market feature in quieter overnight/early morning trading today, as traders await this morning’s important U.S. jobs data.

JIM’S MARKET THOUGHT OF THE DAY *

Commodity traders, an excellent gauge for determining the overall trend in commodity markets is the Continuous Commodity Index (CCI). The CCI [...]

Friday, March 5, 2010
Gold is climbing back towards previous March highs after U.S. employment data printed stronger than analyst expectations.  Although the Dollar initially climbed in reaction to the news, the risk trade has since posted a solid rally amid an improving global economic landscape.  Uncertainty is cooling in the ECB and the impact from [...]