The major US stock indices opened sharply higher this week (after closing higher every day last week) but within hours of the opening the indices turned tail and fell like a stone...taking out last week’s low by Thursday morning.
The major American stock indices hit All Time Highs around the beginning of October and have fallen as much as 7-10% since. I’ve been anticipating a correction (if not more) in those indices for the past couple of months as other major stock indices around the world fell and as US interest rates kept rising.
“Risk On” is the prevailing market mood and it’s been showing up everywhere:
Trade Wars with China: Bloomberg reported mid-day Friday that Trump had instructed aides to proceed with tariffs on about $200B more of Chinese products. Market reaction was surprisingly muted. US stocks fell back (a bit) and the US Dollar rallied (a bit) on the news.
Contagion risk inspired a sharp swing to “risk off” across asset classes this week. The US Dollar Index (USDX) surged to 14 month highs while the “stealth strength” of the US Dollar against 2nd and 3rd tier currencies was spectacular.
Summer doldrums...low volume choppy price action with the occasional headline driven flurry of activity. I was away late last week for a family event, started this week flat, did a little in-and-out trading and ended the week flat. I’m expecting some serious market moves once we get into September so I’m watching several markets now for possible foreshadowing clues.
Trump “is not happy” with the Fed raising interest rates...claiming that rising rates hurt the American economy and cause the US Dollar to rise...that a rising US Dollar makes America less competitive. My good friend Dr.
My trading this week: I started the week flat...waiting for good risk/reward setups to develop. On Wednesday I shorted CAD when it rallied on the Bank of Canada interest rate increase, shorted WTI when it failed to rally on a huge American inventory draw down and shorted EUR as it reversed from Tuesday’s rally.
What I’m doing: I started this week long CAD and AUD against the USD. I was expecting the USD to correct after strong gains the past couple of months. I covered my positions Friday after the employment reports as the USD fell to 3 week lows and CAD rallied nearly 2 cents from the 1 year lows made June 27.
What I’m doing: I took profits Thursday on my short NZD/USD position and bought AUD/USD looking for a short term correction in the USD rally. AUD looks really oversold on technical and sentiment indicators. I also bought YEN Thursday thinking it might rally for 2 reasons, 1) short term USD weakness and 2) it might catch a flight-to-safety bid if US stock markets roll over.
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