In the past three weeks alone, China’s formerly sizzling stock market has gone from bull market leader to bear market letdown. On August 30, the Shanghai Composite Index plummeted 6.7%, its largest one-day drop of 2009 so far. And, of the 89 global markets tracked by Bloomberg, the Shanghai index came in last place. As for what caused the freefall,...

The NASDAQ 100 closed lower due to profit taking on Monday as it consolidated some of the rally off this month’s low. The low-range close sets the stage for a steady to lower opening on Tuesday. Stochastics and the RSI are diverging and are turning bearish signaling that sideways to lower prices are possible near-term. Closes below this month’s...

Zero Hedge Remember the JPY carry trade: long the Dollar and short the Yen? That was then. This is now. Another interesting observation is that the VIX now seems to be tracking currency risk, instead of the market (seems nobody cares about equities any more). Lastly, bond yields are hitting intraday lows while the stock market is being floored by...

Crude oil prices fell the most in a month as Chinese equities led a global slump on concern a slowdown in lending may derail an economic recovery in the world’s second largest energy consuming country. Oil futures declined for the first time in three days after the Shanghai Composite Index, China’s benchmark, tumbled 6.7 percent on a report that...

Zero Hedge Readers may have been curious what some of the things the OTS told Citadel to do, while it suspended the firm’s application to dominate 97.5% of E-Trade’s order flow. Well, one of them apparently was to stop the proposed 120 million share sale that Citadel was hoping to do and offload some of its toxic holdings in exchange for...

The Mess That Greenspan Made Former Morgan Stanley Chief Asia Economist Andy Xie says the Chinese stock market is still in “deep bubble territory”, noting that the Shanghai Composite Index would have to fall another 25 percent to get to fair value. Click to play in a new window He also noted that real estate sales account for 10 percent...

Courtesy of Phil’s Stock World The Shanghai Composite fell 6.7% this morning! I mentioned our love of FXP (ultra-short China) in our August Market Review and the short sale of FXP puts (a bullish play) was our primary cover in the last $100KP since early August for exactly the reason we are seeing play out today.  Of course China’s problems...

Courtesy of Jesse’s Cafe’ Americain “Investors Intelligence’s latest survey of advisory services showed an impressive 51% bullish and a meager 19% bearish…the spread hasn’t been that wide since November 2007.” Alan Abelson, Barrons, Aug. 29, 2009 Next week we move into September, the riskiest month of the...

Courtesy of MISH On account of Fed sponsorship, Banks ‘Too Big to Fail’ Have Grown Even Bigger. When the credit crisis struck last year, federal regulators pumped tens of billions of dollars into the nation’s leading financial institutions because the banks were so big that officials feared their failure would ruin the entire financial...

Over the past couple of months, gold and silver have been uneventful. In this report I have posted weekly charts to show the larger trend of gold and silver. Also I have provided small charts of the US and Canadian gold stock funds GDX and XGD. Because this report has weekly charts, which are a slow and dull time frame to follow, I have added another...

First time claims for unemployment benefits fell in the week ended August 22nd. Initial jobless claims fell to 570,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised average of 580,000. Continuing claims for the week ended August 15th fell 11,000 to 6.133 million.

Sales of new homes rose for the fourth month in a row in July, increasing an estimated 9.6% to an annual rate of 433,000, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The seasonally adjusted sales rate was the highest since last September. The fourth consecutive increase in sales adds to the growing body of evidence that the market is finally expanding...

In the 1930s, Ralph Nelson Elliott, a corporate accountant by profession, studied price movements in the financial markets and observed that certain patterns repeat themselves. He offered proof of his discovery by making astonishingly accurate stock market forecasts. What appears...

It’s a blessing and a curse. IRAs, 401(k)s, thrift plans — some of the best ways to save money for retirement (the blessing) can tie your hands when you invest that money (the curse). Most savers didn’t recognize the cursed side as the markets generally trended up over the years, increasing their nest eggs’ earnings. But after...