Weekly Futures Recap With Mike Seery

We've asked Michael Seery of SEERYFUTURES.COM to give our INO readers a weekly recap of the Futures market. He has been Senior Analyst for close to 15 years and has extensive knowledge of all of the commodity and option markets.

Michael frequently appears on multiple business networks including Bloomberg news, Fox Business, CNBC Worldwide, CNN Business, and Bloomberg TV. He is also a guest on First Business, which is a national and internationally syndicated business show.

Gold Futures

Gold futures in the December contract settled last Friday in New York at 1,222 while currently trading at 1,231 an ounce hitting a ten-week high breaking out of an eight-week consolidation last week. I'm looking at a bullish position if prices trade at the 1,220 level while then placing the stop loss under the 10-day low standing at 1,186 as the risk would be $,3400 for a large contract or $1,100 per mini contract plus slippage and commission. The monetary risk at this time is too much in my opinion and I'm waiting for a pullback as volatility is also starting to increase. I'm currently recommending a bullish silver position which continually grinds higher in a very methodical manner. Gold prices are trading above their 20-day and right at their 100-day moving average as the U.S. dollar has been flip-flopping over the last couple months with no trend having minimal impact as I do believe prices have bottomed out. The chart structure is starting to improve on a daily basis. However, problems with Saudi Arabia could bring money flows back into the sector so look to play this to the upside on any price retracement while risking 2% of your account balance on any given trade.
TREND: HIGHER
CHART STRUCTURE: IMPROVING
VOLATILITY: HIGH

Continue reading "Weekly Futures Recap With Mike Seery"

Disney: Fox Acquisition and Strong ESPN Numbers

Stock Trends Upward to New Highs

Disney (DIS) has finally broken out to new highs as the Fox (FOX) acquisition, and its streaming initiatives come into the fold. Now that the Fox acquisition is complete and its assets are being absorbed by Disney this once opaque situation now appears clear and definitive. Furthermore, Disney is divesting its 39% Sky ownership stake that it acquired via the Fox acquisition to Comcast (CMCSA). This divestiture enables Disney to reduce its debt that was required to purchase the Fox media assets and will allow more investment into its streaming services such as Hulu, ESPN Plus and its Disney branded streaming service that will directly compete with Netflix (NFLX) in 2019. The Fox acquisition brings a majority stake in Hulu (60% ownership) while its ESPN Plus launched earlier this year and has over 1 million subscribers in its early phases of being rolled out. Disney continues to dominate at the box office while posting great growth at its theme parks translating into robust and durable revenue streams. The company is evolving to meet the new age of media consumption demands of the consumer via streaming and on-demand content. To this end, shareholders are beginning to resonate with Disney’s vision for future growth and the stock has appreciated to a 52-week high as of late-breaking above the $118 level. Disney currently trades at a P/E of 14.5 while the average stock in the S&P 500 trades at ~25, representing a ~40% discount to the average stock in the index. Disney offers a compelling long-term investment opportunity given its backdrop.

ESPN Plus – Subscriber Numbers Released

ESPN Plus was launched earlier this year in April to a mixed skeptical reception among shareholders and consumers upon its debut. Due to precipitous declines in ESPN viewership via traditional cable, Disney was cornered to remediate its ESPN business and evolve to the cord cutting consumer. Recently, Disney announced a key milestone for its streaming platform, reaching over 1 million paid subscribers. ESPN is Disney’s first inroads into the streaming arena offering a package of sports which include Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL), college football, soccer, boxing and UFC for $4.99 per month. Disney has kept its ESPN Plus subscriber numbers a secret and would only state that its paid subscriptions were "strong" and that growth was surpassing expectations. Continue reading "Disney: Fox Acquisition and Strong ESPN Numbers"

Indexes Fail To Break Away From 200-Day MA

Hello traders everywhere. It's hard to believe but as I write two of the three indexes are in positive territory for the week. Mid-week it looked like the stock market may be in rebound mode, only to fall close to the levels that we saw last week at weeks end and ultimately unable to break away from the 200-day moving average. The indexes look to be set up to retest the low levels from last week, and that could form a double bottom, much like the one we saw in April of this year.

The 200-day MA has proven to be a strong level of support this year rejecting several attempts by the market to break it, only to see the market bounce higher after each attempt. Will that trend continue?

weekly trade triangle

As crazy as it might seem even with this week's volatility both the S&P 500 and DOW are looking to post weekly gains of +.2% and +.4% respectively. However, the NASDAQ isn't playing along, and it is posting its third weekly loss in a row standing at -.4%. Continue reading "Indexes Fail To Break Away From 200-Day MA"

Emerging Market ETFs Could Offer Great Opportunities

Recent studies of emerging markets show their investment opportunities may be greater than most investors realize. One study believes that by 2020 the aggregate GDP of emerging markets will overtake that of developed economies around the world. Another one has the number of global consumers hitting 1.8 billion by 2025, with the majority of them living in emerging markets. Lastly, it is believed consumer spending in emerging markets will grow three times faster than that of developed markets in the coming years.

All three of these stats indicate there could soon be a huge growth opportunity in developing markets around the world. But there are a lot of emerging market ETFs that are down more than 9% year-to-date while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is up more than 10% and hitting new all-time highs. With that being said, many experts are beginning to grow weary of U.S. equities as we have now set a new record regarding the length of our current bull-market and valuations appear to be stretched.

When we take all of this into consideration, moving money to emerging market funds now may turn out to be a good long-term asset allocation play. So, let's take a look at a few funds which look appealing due to their rough 2018.

The first two are the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO) and its direct competitor the Schwab Emerging Markets Equity ETF (SCHE). Both of these funds are large, liquid and have low fee’s; 0.14% and 0.13% respectively. They also both don’t consider South Korea an emerging market but hold positions based in Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, China, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, and Mexico to name the top 8 countries based on holdings. Both have an index weighting based on market cap and have a weighted market cap of around $80 billion, meaning you’re getting great foreign large-cap exposure. Continue reading "Emerging Market ETFs Could Offer Great Opportunities"

World Oil Supply, Demand And Price Outlook, October 2018

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its Short-Term Energy Outlook for October, and it shows that OECD oil inventories likely bottomed in July at 2.806 billion barrels. It shows inventories rising in the third quarter, contrary to the normal seasonal trend. However, it forecasts that stocks will drop in December to 2.817 billion after the Iranian sanctions are expected to go into effect.

Throughout 2019, OECD inventories are generally expected to rise, ending the year with 98 million barrels more than at the end of 2018. The expected drop in Iranian production, due to the U.S. sanctions, is forecast to be more-than-offset by increases from other producers, such as the U.S., Canada and the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE.

oil inventories

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia has recently stated that KSA can produce at least 12 million barrels per day. If it does increase output to that level, this would be a major “surprise” to world markets since its production has never exceeded 11 million. Continue reading "World Oil Supply, Demand And Price Outlook, October 2018"