Amidst all of the talk of the death of volatility, we’ll excuse you if you didn’t notice some rather bizarre behavior in farmed commodity markets in May. The poster child was Wheat, which had a trend reversal on May 6th, and didn’t look back. But it wasn’t just Wheat – similar patterns were seen in Corn, Soybean Oil, Rice, Coffee, and Cotton:
Category: Macro Commentary
02
Jun
2014
12
May
2014
6 Unscientific Ways to Tell the Market is at the Top
It’s safe to say that many investors have lost money trying to predict the turn of a market, or vice versa; believing that the market is still a bull market as it drops 25% in a couple weeks. But instead of telling you what is, or what isn’t, we figured we’d show you some things that could potentially be warning signs, and you can decide for yourself?. So here are the “6 could be Warning Signs,” that the market is at the top.
08
May
2014
About those Higher Interest Rates (Lower Bond Prices)
Nobody remembered to tell the bond market what it was supposed to do this year; and before you knew what was happening – the long end of the curve has rallied (prices up, rates down) with the yield on the 30 yr falling from 3.90% to 3.40% so far this year.
06
May
2014
Gundlach: Short Housing, AAPL, Gold, and Yen
Jeff Gundlach has become something of an investment guru over the past few years; first with the not so small feat of beating out the Bond King Gross rather consistently in building up DoubleLine from scratch to a firm managing $52 Billion in assets. Now, just when things were getting boring with new all time highs in the Dow last week, he’s back at it with a call to short the housing market.
01
May
2014
Sell in May, and Look Managed Futures Way?
Is it really that easy? Just sell in May? Does it matter if stocks have been going up leading into May, what about if they’re down? What if we’re in the 2nd year of a presidential cycle?
28
Apr
2014
Energy Markets vs. Energy Companies
Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that the energy sector has been going down for most of the past 5 years from looking at the charts above – but those charts depict relative performance. The energy sector (via the ETF $XLE) has actually done quite well since the 2009 lows, see here:
25
Apr
2014
The Obligatory John Henry/Commodities Article
IBloomberg John Henryf you haven’t heard yet… Billionaire Boston Red Sox owner John Henry got his start in the commodities industry, and more specifically – the niche hedge fund segment known as managed futures. He’s never been shy about a magazine cover, or cameo in MoneyBall, and despite his being out of the ‘commodities’ business for a while now, he’s on a recent cover of Bloomberg Business once again linking the Red Sox with commodities.
24
Apr
2014
Would You Invest in this “Hedge Fund?”
There aren’t a lot of investors excited about investing in something which hasn’t made any real money the past five years…Which leads us to the simple question of whether you would find the track record of the following “hedge fund” appetizing? Would it warrant an investment from you? What’s your first gut instinct on it? Most likely a pass…
21
Apr
2014
Is the Bear Market just Hibernating?
We’re happy to see our friends at J. Lyons Fund Management getting more involved in social media with a blog, twitter handle, and now an emailed newsletter. Here’s some great stats from their latest piece hinting that the bear might not be dead… just hibernating: Stats Courtesy: J. Lyons Fund Management
17
Feb
2014
The Dark Side of the Moon Asset Class Scoreboard
Maybe it’s just the die-hard Pink Floyd’s fan that we are, but we can’t help but think that January’s asset class scoreboard chart looks a little bit like the Dark Side of the Moon album cover…
