ZIRP Era in Pictures

Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) was instigated by a credit induced collapse of the US financial system and perpetuated in December of 2008 by desperate financial policy makers as a fix to problems they created in the first place.

In reality, it is simply an epic distortion of normal economic signals that cleaned up the mess created by previous policy distortions (like the commercial credit bubble of the Greenspan era) by systematically (5+ years and running) main lining new distortions into the system.

zirp

So in addition to this picture, which could one day hang in a monetary museum with the title ‘Grandma and Her Savings Account Bail Out Wealthy Asset Owners’, let’s take a walk down memory lane and marvel at some other pictures created by this policy… Continue reading "ZIRP Era in Pictures"

Pigs no Longer Fly; What Are the Implications?

Along with the highly publicized loss of leadership from big tech, the US stock market is now in danger of losing another, and possibly more important leader, the piggies or banking sector.

While the weekly chart of BKX has not yet broken down, it is very close to doing so after sporting a negative RSI divergence for the better part of the last year. We should not jump the gun with bearish scenarios, but as always we want to be among those looking forward and ready, just like in 2007, which was the last time BKX-SPX began to roll over in earnest.

bkx

NFTRH has followed the BKX-SPX (leadership) ratio every step of the way during the current leg of the cyclical stock bull market. Most recently we noted that BKX-SPX failed to make higher highs on two occasions. This put the ratio – and by extension the stock market – on alert as we watched for a lower low.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to a lower low. Continue reading "Pigs no Longer Fly; What Are the Implications?"

CoT – Gold, Silver, Commodities & T Notes

Among its 29 pages of high quality market analysis, this week's NFTRH (#287) reviewed the Commitments of Traders (CoT) structures of a few markets and their implications.

cot.au

The above CoT graph clearly shows that gold has declined as the structure improved (red arrows). It then bottoms with the circled extremes and rises in conjunction with a degrading structure (green arrows). Gold is still on its journey toward bottoming. Continue reading "CoT – Gold, Silver, Commodities & T Notes"

Big Pictures: Stocks, Gold and the Miners

Ukraine war hype, China demand drop, GOFO mysteries… these are the short term noise inputs on the gold sector.

US Treasury bond yield spreads, gold vs. commodities (i.e. the 'real' price of gold), gold vs. the stock market… these are some of the fundamental considerations that actually matter and they have taken a hit since January.

It is easy to say 'I am bullish in the big picture' (measured in years) but it is not so easy to actively manage in the smaller pictures (measured in days, weeks and months) with all of the above noise inputs and more bombarding the poor individual player.

We use shorter term charts to manage the shorter time frames.  Daily charts have most recently indicated a bearish set up as bear flags formed across the precious metals complex (with the exception of silver, which never got going to begin with) last week.  Weekly charts continue to indicate that an extended and oh so grinding bottom may be forming, but that includes the potential for ups and downs, also known as volatility. Continue reading "Big Pictures: Stocks, Gold and the Miners"

Gold Contrary Indicators

The gold sector is peopled by a high concentration of contrary indicators because it is a relatively (to the vast world of equities and bonds) small market that offers refuge from some of the damaging aspects of the spectrum of investment products that are supported by the manipulation of interest rates and printed (and digitally created) money supplies. Thus, gold has moral high ground if an asset can be thought to have morality.

More accurately, the people bullish on and promoting gold take high moral ground and that is where the emotional power comes from in this market. This power feeds upon the desires of regular people to not suffer the consequences of the 'evil' actions of those running a system that many do not agree with. Readers of this site know of course that I certainly don't agree with the setting and manipulation of interest rates by decree of man (and woman) in service to engineering desired outcomes in financial markets. Continue reading "Gold Contrary Indicators"