by Karl Denninger Let’s have a peek! The report was issued today by Bradley J. Holcomb, CPSM, CPSD, chair of the Institute for Supply Management™ Manufacturing Business Survey Committee. “The PMI registered 53.9 percent, an increase of 1.2 percentage points from November’s reading of 52.7 percent, indicating expansion in the manufacturing sector for the 29th consecutive month. Read More...

Via Pete Tchir of TF Market Advisors, H/T  Tyler Durden Stock futures are up sharply after another week of unprecedented volatility. Although last week was relatively tame, only 13 times in the last 60 years has the S&P 500 had a down 1% day during the week between Christmas and New Year’s.  We managed one of those days last week.  We also had a 1% positive day.  Futures are strong Read More...

(Excerpts from this week’s Stock World Weekly) “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)  Shakespeare’s famous quote wasn’t written about the stock market in the year 2011, but it co Read More...

Chris Vermeulen shows you what is next for stocks, gold, silver,oil and the dollar index. Depending on your trading abilities you will see this as huge opportunity or very sobering video. Sign up for Chris’ plays below! Read More...

Courtesy of Jesse’s Cafe Americain As always the four great variables in human history are weather, disease, war, and religion.  The first two are of God and the latter of men. Weather spans a wide range of natural phenomenon including earthquakes, and similarly religion includes secular movements and philosophies such as fascism and communism, essentially godless religions that involve the Read More...

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope this week’s price action didn’t catch you off guard? It was profitable but you really had to be on the ball to pocket the gains… Anyways, I just wanted to wish you a New Year and thank you for being part of my success in 2011 before it’s too late. Have you heard of Chris Vermeulen? He is a trader that I have followed for a couple years and he can trade indexe Read More...

Submitted by Tyler Durden Presented with little comment – equities and bonds are diverging aggressively now as 10Y accelerates towards its all-time low yields (1.67 on 9/23). As we noted earlier, foreigners are dumping Treasuries at a record pace and yet it grinds tighter and stocks rally on USD weakness. Our ‘thesis’ from yesterday that a reactive Fed QE is being priced in se Read More...

by The Mad Hedge Fund Trader I am constantly barraged with emails from gold bugs who passionately argue that their beloved metal is trading at a tiny fraction of its true value, and that the barbaric relic is really worth $5,000, $10,000, or even $50,000 an ounce (GLD). They claim the move in the yellow metal we are seeing is only the beginning of a 30 fold rise in prices similar to what we saw f Read More...

By Eric McWhinnie On Thursday, Italy sold 7.02 billion euros of longer-dated bonds in the country’s final debt sale of the year.  Although the yield on the 10-year bond decreased to 6.98 percent from November’s 7.56 percent, there is still plenty of concern weighing on the euro.  The struggling euro has given a boost to the U.S. dollar, which has weakened gold prices. Italy had aimed to rai Read More...

Taiwan imports 99 percent of its energy, which is vital to its rapidly industrializing economy.   The island nation’s electricity demand was recently growing at almost 5 percent per year, but this is slowing to about 3.3 percent per annum to 2013. Nuclear power has been a significant part of the electricity supply for two decades and now provides 17 percent of the country’s overal Read More...

The last week of the year volume tends to be light due to the fact that big money traders are busy enjoying the holidays and waiting for their yearend bonuses. I was not planning on doing much this week because of the low volume but after reviewing some charts and risk levels on my top 5 trading vehicles I could not help but share my findings with everyone last Friday. You can see what I talked ab Read More...

David A Banister- www.MarketTrendForecast.com The market has been in the process of a near 13 Fibonacci week corrective rally since the October 4th 2011 lows at 1074 on the SP 500.  So far the highs reached on the initial rally of 218 points were in October at 1292.  That has remained the high water mark as we have consolidated over the last many weeks.  I expect the market to complete this c Read More...

Submitted by Tyler Durden Think “all is fine” in Europe after today’s largely irrelevant Italian bill auction (the auction was for 6 month debt – even Greece can raise that kind of money)? Think again. Here is the Fermentation Committee Chairman explaining why Europe is so hard pressed to create a fake sense of calm, allowing those who know the real story to take advantag Read More...

Scott Redler of T3Live US stock futures are edging higher in the pre-market Wednesday, following an extremely quiet trading day yesterday. The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) traded 1/5 of its average daily volume and volatility was low. The action was characteristic for this week of the year between the Christmas and New Years, and there is no reason to believe anything will change today. Action may Read More...

by Karl Denninger As is my usual practice it’s that time of year when I score my “best guesses” from the previous year, and look forward with my next set.  If you’re not inclined to bother with long-winded explanations the title is probably sufficient.  But for everyone else, let’s look at the 2011 list and see how I did. We’re not going to get away with sp Read More...