Can The Fed Drop Interest Rates Below 0%?

By: Elliott Wave International

This question is not as preposterous as it may seem.

For the financial markets, the biggest event of the week starts tomorrow: On Wednesday and Thursday (Feb. 10-11) Fed chair Janet Yellen will appear before Congress to deliver her semi-annual Monetary Policy Report.

"It's huge." That's how one strategist put it this morning, in a CNBC interview about the importance of Yellen's testimony.

Why are all eyes on Yellen? Maybe because by now, almost everyone has forgotten how powerless the Fed appeared in 2007-2009, when none of its measures could stop the financial crisis. Despite the recent market chaos, six years of rising stock prices reaffirmed the notion that the Fed can move mountains. "As the Fed goes, so do the markets" is the current mantra -- so, on Wednesday and Thursday, analysts will be listening carefully: Will Yellen mention the ongoing market turmoil? Continue reading "Can The Fed Drop Interest Rates Below 0%?"

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.

Crude Oil Futures

Crude oil futures in the March contract are trading below their 20 and 100-day moving average hitting a contract and multi-year low in Thursday’s trade before rallying this Friday currently trading at 28.10 a barrel up nearly $2 on massive short covering ending the week. Crude oil futures traded as low as 26.05 in Thursday’s trade only to rally, but this market certainly remains weak, but at the current time on sitting on the sidelines as the risk does not meet my criteria as the chart structure is very poor presently. As a trader you must think about probabilities of success and at the current time I’m only focused on the soft commodities as they have very tight chart structure with solid trends to the downside as crude oil remains choppy down these levels as the easy money to the downside has already been made in my opinion. Continue reading "Weekly Futures Recap With Mike Seery"

This Indicator Is A Winner For Long-Term Traders

It has been one heck of a week to say the very least and it is not over yet. I want to take a look at a tool that I'm pretty confident in saying that very few traders ever watch. The tool I'm discussing is MarketClub's quarterly charts. If you have not seen this MarketClub feature, you may want to check it out, particularly if you are a long-term trader.

I'm going to be looking at the S&P 500 to see just how close the quarterly chart is to turning negative. I'm also going to be looking at a textbook example of a downside measurement on the S&P 500.

I will also be analyzing Apple and Yahoo, both of which could be in for a pretty bumpy ride.

Let's begin by looking at the S&P 500 (CME:SP500) and the textbook example I mentioned earlier for measuring a down move. I'm using a close-only weekly chart and you will see exactly how I measure the move.

Weekly Chart of S&P 500 (CME:SP500)

Next let's take a look at this long-term quarterly chart of the S&P 500 and as you can see it is poised to possibly break the positive long-term trend that has been in place since October of 2010. Continue reading "This Indicator Is A Winner For Long-Term Traders"

Here's How We're Attacking AMZN And AAPL In This Volatility

Markets are getting crushed in here and tech continues to lead us lower. Join me on the trade desk as I take you into our option positions in Apple and Amazon and with Fibonacci analysis, we analyze just how low these tech giants can fall.

Learn more about TradingAnalysis.com here.

Plan Your Trade, and Trade Your Plan,
Todd Gordon

It's Not Over Until It's Over And It's Not Over Yet - Part 2

Hello MarketClub members everywhere! Well, today's sharp drop in equity prices and the rally in gold should come as no surprise as I have been talking about this since the beginning of the year. In fact, here's my first post where I explained why I thought the bear market was going to continue in the equities market. I'm not going to go over the reasons again as to why the markets are going down, suffice to say they are going down and are likely to continue.

At the moment all of the central banks, including the Fed, are clueless as to what to do. Instead of spending time on a cure in 2008, we made it easy for everyone to "take a pill" and mask over the problem. Since it did not cure the problem, we all have to suffer now as the markets readjust and face the music. The new hard reality is that there is no wonder pill.

Let's take a look at the major indices and see how far they could fall based on Fibonacci retracement levels and technical measurements. Continue reading "It's Not Over Until It's Over And It's Not Over Yet - Part 2"