Market Overview

Note: With yesterday's release of the Federal Reserve's Z.1. Financial Accounts of the United States for Q4 2016, we have updated this commentary to incorporate the latest data. Let's take a long-term...

Note: This commentary has been updated to Friday morning's release of Nonfarm Employment for February.Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which...

Today's release of the publicly available data from ECRI (Economic Cycle Research Institute) puts its Weekly Leading Index (WLI) at 144.9, down just 0.5 from the previous week. Year-over-year the...

This morning's employment report for February showed a 235K increase in total nonfarm payrolls. The unemployment rate ticked downward from 4.8% to 4.7%. The Investing.com consensus was for 200K new...

Yesterday, the European Central Bank released its most recent monetary policy statement. What does it imply for the gold market?The ECB meeting has probably been the most important event this week so...

China’s Premier, Li Keqiang, tabled the government’s annual “work report” to the National People’s Congress last week and outlined a range of new economic targets for...

This coming week Janet Yellen and her minions are expected, with 100% certainty, to lift the Fed funds rate by another 0.25% to 1.00%.This certainty has been building as of late given the rise in...

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates again at their meeting next week. They obviously view the recent cyclical upturn as being durable and the inflation data as pointing to...

Those that view the message of the market on daily basis are likely confused by trading noise. While trading noise contributes to the long-term trends, it does not define them. Human behavior tries to...

North Korean banks subject to international sanctions have been banned from using Swift. Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld Parliament’s motion to impeach President Park. Singapore eased...

Bringing forward expectations of a Fed hike from May-June to March was worth something for the dollar, but to get more now, the market may need to recognize the risk of three (or more) hikes this...

In the aftermath of Friday morning's mostly uneventful jobs report, the U.S. Dollar Index pressed on key near-term trendline support at 101.40, which needs to contain the weakness to avert additional...

When an asset takes out horizontal resistance to the upside, it's nice to see the old resistance tested as new support before pushing higher.The S&P 500 traded sideways for nearly 18 months before...

The worst sell-off of the year has brought the S&P 500 all the way back to its 20-day SMA. It has retraced a mere 36 points of its move out of the election low. Yet sentiment readings like the...