As usual with a big fall you can analyse the overnight news and debate whether the drop is warranted, but when it comes to a free market that rides on sentiment the answer is not whether the market should fall 274 points because the National Economic Council director is going... Show More
The Euphoriameter rose again in July, with the combined sentiment reading for the S&P500 lifted by higher forward PE ratios, a falling VIX, and rising levels of bullish sentiment in the surveys. The chart will probably trigger memories or comparisons to the 1990's because aside from the surge coming out... Show More
A reset has occurred in the bond markets with sentiment going from extreme pessimism - expecting higher yields, back to the opposite side with the bond sentiment indicator now showing increasing expectations of lower yields. The chart below appeared in the latest edition of the Weekly Macro Themes report alongside... Show More
Market sentiment often focuses on the negatives, even when economic fundamentals tell a different story. Divergence in sentiment and data like this can present significant opportunities. Andrew Clifford, CIO at Platinum Asset Management, identifies two such global opportunities, commenting that “this is when money is made in markets”. Show More
The Trump rally took a breather in March with risk assets mixed. Equities were flat in the US and China, rose in Europe (5.5%) and Australia (2.7%) and fell in Japan (-1.1%). US investment grade and high yield credit gave up a small portion of the recent gains. Commodities mostly... Show More
Those that follow my personal account on Twitter https://twitter.com/Callum_Thomas will be familiar with my weekly S&P 500 #ChartStorm in which I pick out 10 charts on the S&P 500 to tweet. Typically I'll pick a couple of themes and hammer them home with the charts, but sometimes it's just a... Show More
This week's S&P500 #ChartStorm (see my Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Callum_Thomas ) covers a series of indicators that show, after a 9-day losing streak, oversold conditions and contrarian bullish signals for the S&P500. While the current selloff could go further, the odds of positive performance are rising as these indicators start to... Show More
This week's S&P500 #ChartStorm (see my Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Callum_Thomas ) covers the series of down trend lines in the market internals i.e. breadth and sentiment - the logical conclusion of which would be a deeper and broader market correction. But I also cover a series of bullish pickings and explain... Show More
Remember Brexit? The UK’s unexpected vote in late June to leave the EU led to a dramatic collapse in market sentiment. At the point of maximum pessimism, the FTSE 100 was down 8% on the day. Yet within a week the FTSE had recovered all of its ground, and then... Show More
In this week's weekly, Chief Economist Bill Evans gives a detailed run down of the RBA's August Statement on Monetary Policy, particularly their latest forecasts for growth and inflation and the implications for policy. This week, the focus for data will be the Westpac-MI consumer sentiment release and updates on... Show More
So said Arjun Divecha of GMO. Show More
Earnings season is kicking off here in the US, but before I start reviewing some of the major earnings results, I want to discuss a bit of anecdotal evidence of the economic recovery. This past week, I was able to take a road trip to San Diego, California to visit... Show More
Trends in sentiment and volatility suggest complacency. One of the consequences of central bank policies may be markets characterised by low levels of volatility. Some financial commentators have even talked about the death of volatility. At the same time, investor sentiment has hit bullish 10-year highs last witnessed in August... Show More
What will ultimately break the trend for the current bull market, complacency, trading volume? The S&P 500 is now at another record high though many investors, especially domestic ones, continue to say that the market is too complacent and is not factoring in enough earnings risk over a 12 month... Show More
There's no room for error in these markets. Liz Ann Sonders, the CIO at Charles Schwab says that the US is still in the middle innings of a secular bull market, yet that doesn't mean we won't see any corrective phases. Sonders cites two issues that could cause some market... Show More
Pulse of the retail investor. Last month, Bell Potter conducted a Retail Investor Sentiment Survey, which captured responses from over 1,000 individuals throughout Australia. Key observations: A clear majority of investors have a positive outlook on the Australian share market over the next 12 months; Over 94% of investors are... Show More
Are investors chasing US equities? According to Morningstar, investors are sinking more money into stock mutual funds than they have since 2000. For the first 10 months of this year, stock funds pulled in a whopping $172 billion. It's been 13 years since that amount of money has been allocated... Show More