Geopolitics

This week I’m going to lead off with the economic indicators – some of my favorites, including: Retail Sales; headline +4.36% m/m, more than erasing last month’s drop.This was a large move.  The economy is now heating up again. Industrial Production; +1.41% m/m; INDPRO is now at a 3-year high.That’s positive for growth. Producer Prices;…

It was another new eight-year high for the master resource this week. Oil did sell off on Tuesday, but made it all up and then some with Friday’s big rally. On the week, crude rose +1.52 [+1.67%] to 92.33. Oil remains in a strong uptrend. Every dip has been bought for the past three months….

The master resource just keeps slogging higher, rising +3.98 [+4.58%] to 90.81, breaking out to the new 8-year high on Friday. Is it geopolitics? Shortages? Lack of exploration over the past two years? The end of the pandemic? Yes, I think so. Fun fact: OPEC has raised its production quotas by 400,000 bpd, but the…

The Fed staged its every-six-week meeting this week, with the press conference happening at 2:30 PM on Wednesday. Did anything exciting happen? Let’s go take a peek at Wolf’s site. He’s deconstructed Powell’s remarks plus the Fed Statement released at 2:00 PM that same day. Yields Spike, Stock Dump, Futures Fall Powell explained that “monetary…

It was a mostly-boring week for economic data. Right now, I’m looking for signs of an impending SPX correction, given the whole setup of “rising rates” right alongside higher oil prices – a re-run of 1973.  I’m starting to see the equity-market correction signals mount. From last week: bad consumer sentiment (67) falling retail sales…