Tools for Technical Analysis
Warren Buffett now owns more T-bills than the Federal Reserve.
It’s true: Buffett’s investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, owns $235 billion worth of T-bills; the Fed owns $195 billion worth. Of course, most of the Fed’s money is in other government-guaranteed debt. Buffett’s is mostly in stocks. Still, his current cash holdings are about twice the average for the previous five years. How did he accumulate so much cash? By selling stocks in this heady environment.
Gold’s three-month implied volatility has declined to its lowest level in over four years. While low volatility is not a short term timing tool, low volatility eventually precedes high volatility. At the same time, total open interest in gold futures has declined to its lowest level since December 2018, as traders are either closing futures contracts or abstaining from opening new ones. The low level of open interest means that investors’ attention is turning away from gold, and the low implied volatility indicates that investors do not expect gold to move much over the course of the next three months. Both are preludes to what we see as a major move forming in gold prices.
Nearly everyone who buys groceries, fills their car tank with gas, pays rent, buys car insurance and so on is talking about the high cost of living. And it’s true that consumer price inflation is higher today than before the pandemic – although, it’s nowhere near as high as it was two years ago, when the annual inflation rate spiked to a 40-year peak of 9.1%.
The likelihood of conflict depends in part on the region’s social mood, as reflected in Asia’s stock market indexes. When social mood is negative, countries are more likely to behave aggressively.
The fall and spring auctions in New York City are the art market’s bellwether sales events. And according to The New York Times, the results from the City’s spring art auction season “tell a story of a masterpiece market come down to earth.” The article notes that the spring sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips delivered $1.4 billion — a 22 percent decrease from total earnings of $1.8 billion in 2023.
While auction experts called it a “respectable finish,” the general art market nervousness is a bad sign for the next major auction season in November. It’s “a momentum-based market,” said one expert about the art industry. “There can be a little bit of a herd mentality.”
Magazine covers can indicate “social mood” and social mood affects the stock market. Could this magazine cover be indicating something, now?
Even though the mainstream media was looking to so-called fundamentals — such as the action of the dollar or bond yields — Elliott Wave International focused on the patterns of investor psychology
The topic with all the buzz these days is Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its future. The potential benefits include automating repetitive tasks, enhancing productivity, data analysis, assisting in medical research — and more.
… the mood surrounding AI is way more optimistic than pessimistic.
Just think about how investors have bid up the price of AI-related stock Nvidia Corp., which has a market capitalization of around $2 trillion. That’s more than the GDP of Australia or South Korea. Indeed, if Nvidia was a country, it would rank just outside the top ten largest economies on Earth. Yet — a word of caution: Trends generally don’t go up or down in straight lines without significant interruptions.
Real estate prices have reached absurdly high prices because corporate investors have taken over the housing market from individuals in a program encouraged, once again, by the federal government. “…24% of U.S. single family homes are owned by investors.” When the bulk of participants in the market are consumers who think of houses as shelter, prices are stable. When a significant portion of participants in the market are speculators who think of houses as investment items, prices soar and crash.
Major red flags for the Chinese real estate market… China’s home prices are falling… Yet, economists have been dismissive of this threat.
