Certainly, the markets were a lot more sedate today than they were on the first day of 2016! All eyes were on China after yesterday’s exchange close and initially, we did see a rather depressed (-2.6%) open, but only to recover within minutes. Most of the day was spent in and out of the red […]

What a start to the New Year! Talk around the street voiced a few reasons for today’s stock market declines from geopolitical tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran to additional dealing costs associated to playing the markets. Discussions are apparently underway across the globe to address market orders, the way in which orders are placed, […]

As we close 2015 and begin a new year, the markets generally closed flat to neutral with a warning that as we approach the political year from hell (2017) that this is by no means going to be a walk through the park. We are more likely than not going to see some trends conclude […]

It was a very dull day to finish 2015, but not really surprising given the performance we have seen for the year. Shanghai has finished the year up 9.4%, but it was the smaller Shenzhen Composite with a YTD gain of 63.2% that was the shining star. The Nikkei added to its annual gain by […]

  Below is the holiday schedule for the markets. The closing for our models will be TODAY, and for the most part, this will be a full normal day. We are hovering around our year-end numbers in many markets from gold, the pound, to oil and the Dow. If the Dow closes lower than last […]

Asia finished a mixed session with gains in Shanghai (+0.25%) and Japan (+0.27%), countered with a small decline in the HSI (-0.53%). For Japan, today was the last trading day for 2015 and returned a yearly gain of just over 9%. European core indices fell across the spectrum with losses for DAX (-1.08%), CAC (-0.52%), […]

Despite the low volume, we saw a positive rally across Asian equities with all markets closing around 0.5% or higher. The PBOC set the yuan rate at 6.486, the lowest since mid-2011, but marginally weaker than yesterday. In Europe, markets moved ahead with the DAX, FTSE, and CAC all closing higher by around 2%, the […]

Holiday volume and poor order flow was the name of the game today and can probably be expected for the rest of the run into New Year. In Asia, China’s Shanghai lost 2.5% whilst the Nikkei made a small gain of 0.56%. In European trade, the oil market was the topic of conversation as it […]

After the fall of Rome, monks fled to a small island off the coast of Ireland known as Skellig Michael (also known as Sceilig Mhichíl).What you may not be aware of is that we actually owe a great deal to these monks. Why? They took with them books that did not survive elsewhere except among […]

First of all, someone is claiming that I put out some recommendation on DUST. I have NEVER recommended such an ETF and this appears to be a deliberate attempt to mislead people. You can search this blog; I have never made any recommendation involving any specific ETF. The motive behind this scam is curious to say […]