The word for the day yesterday was bloated. People often ask me to explain how the market works. I say it is like having a four course meal. You enjoy it, digest it, process it and then finally your body shall we say emits what is left over. Yesterday was a state of bloating in […]
My Gut Feeling for Today, December 17, 2012 ($)
December 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The tragic events of Friday in Newtown, CT captured the headlines and airwaves throughout the world this weekend. All for good reason as the act was sickening and horrific. These were young children that were slaughtered. As Americans we came together regardless of our political persuasion or religious beliefs to and pray, express our condolences […]
My Gut Feeling for Today, December 6, 2012 ($)
December 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
If your portfolio consisted solely of Apple (AAPL) -6.43% and Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) -15.99% stock you got taken to the woodshed yesterday. If your portfolio was exclusively in the options of both stocks, particularly short dated varieties, you were devastated. If you have a diversified portfolio containing both stocks, you underperformed but […]
Gary Smith’s Market Take
November 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Here’s my take on the markets today, November 14th, 2012. If you’d like to read more of my articles, click here. Credit gauges are mixed today. The 3M EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap is rising +1.9% to -27.47 bps. The TED Spread is falling -6.7% to 20.85 bps. The 2Y Swap Spread is falling -2.58% […]
Weekly Sector Update – Holding on ($)
September 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
SKYY is still at the top of the list this week. You can read about the details here. We have a lot of the same top ten holdings as last week. The QQQs snuck in, along with IYG and PXQ. But the ETF that we are going to discuss this week is IAI (iShares Dow Jones US […]
My Gut Feeling for Today, August 13, 2012 ($)
August 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
We are now entering the beginning of the traditional August vacation slowdown. Typically this is quite evident in Europe but it now seems that Americans are beginning to take it easy for the month as well. Summer sleep-away camps have ended or will end by the upcoming weekend. Family vacations will begin in earnest soon. […]
Dumb Regulation is Good Regulation — How to Regulate the Banks
July 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I wrote this on the 16th of March, 2010: -==-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=–==–=-==-=-=-=- Should regulation be dumb? In one sense yes, in others, no. It really depends on how well the regulators understand the risks involved, and how much they can encourage professionalism among profit center heads and risk managers. As those two increase, regulation can be smart. […]
Weekly Sector Update – Energy ($)
July 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Amazingly, Felix still loves ITB. But since we recently discussed ITB, you can just click here to read about it. Felix is also favoring IYE and MOO. As you may recall Felix was in love with financials last week (which you can read about here). But it turns out it was more of a junior high […]
Gary Smith’s Market Take
July 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Here’s my take on the markets today, July 11, 2012. If you’d like to read more of my articles, click here. Credit gauges are mixed today. The 3M EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap is rising +9.5% to -52.0 bps. The TED Spread is falling -1.8% to 36.5 bps. The European Investment Grade CDS Index is falling […]
My Gut Feeling for Today, July 11, 2012 ($)
July 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Welcome to the season. I am not talking about earnings season, rather the summer trading season. Volume will be light, moves will be exaggerated, false news will be easily spread and vacations will leave junior staff in charge. Yesterday was a prime example of this type of market environment. We had several directional changes in […]