Dollar Slips After Retail Sales Miss The Mark

Hello MarketClub members everywhere. After five days of gains, the dollar is dropping from subdued retail sales data and inflation in the world's largest economy. Gold has risen for a second straight day, while crude oil has slipped back below $48 a barrel.

MarketClub's Mid-day Market Report

Several retailers, including Macy's, Nordstrom, Kohl's and J.C. Penny, have seen their stocks tank this week after reporting weaker-than-expected quarterly results, putting the retail sector under pressure. You have to wonder how brick and mortar retailers can survive in an ever-expanding online world. What do you think?

Key levels to watch this week: Continue reading "Dollar Slips After Retail Sales Miss The Mark"

Oil: Is It 2014 All Over Again?

Lior Alkalay - INO.com Contributor


In the past two weeks, crude oil futures took a beating; WTI futures ended last week at $46.47 per barrel while futures for Brent crude, the global benchmark, closed at $49.47 per barrel. Both WTI and Brent contracts have now concluded a 15% and 16% fall from their respective peak prices, closing at their lowest point since the deal between OPEC oil producers and 13 non-OPEC oil producers was signed. And the outlook for oil is not encouraging as a broader analysis of both the fundamentals and technical at play reveal a worrisome pattern—a pattern of an oversupplied oil market, ready to nose dive, as it did in 2014.

At the heart of the matter, as in 2014, is the US shale oil industry. Only this time around the US shale industry is significantly more competitive. According to Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council quoted by Reuters, “the cost of extracting oil at Dunn County, North Dakota, is as low as in Iran” and “the cost of producing a barrel of oil is at $15 and falling" That figure is truly nothing short of dramatic! True, the production cost at Eagle Ford and Permian Delaware facilities is higher than Dunn country. And yet this figure underpins a very important change. In the next oil slump, shale producers won't be under the same pressure to cut production. Meanwhile, oil production in America has risen to 9.29 million barrels a day and is expected to surge to 10 million barrels a day by 2018. All the while, crude oil inventories are stubbornly high. The latest data from the EIA shows crude oil inventories were at 527.8 million barrels, at the higher end of the 5-year range. In fact, as the EIA chart below shows, US crude oil inventories have been persistently above the 5-year range for some time, suggesting demand for crude in the United States is too weak to accommodate the rising supply from shale oil. Continue reading "Oil: Is It 2014 All Over Again?"

Talk About Chutzpah

George Yacik - INO.com Contributor - Fed & Interest Rates


If you’ve ever wondered why so many of today’s American college students seem to live in a self-delusional world where they take little personal responsibility for anything that goes wrong in their lives, you don’t have to look any further than the professors who teach them.

In a recent op-ed column in the New York Times, Susan M. Dynarski, a professor of education, public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, takes the Trump Administration to task for its failure to take the proper steps, in Ms. Dynarski’s eyes, to fix the student debt problem, as if Donald Trump himself caused the crisis.

Nowhere in her lengthy critique does she ever address head-on the real culprits in the student debt crisis: the government agency that made these loans in the first place, and the colleges and universities that have exploited these loans in order to drive up the price of higher education, forcing millions of students and their parents into debt if they want to attend college.

First, she says, “the Education Department has weakened accountability for the companies that administer student loans,” specifically calling out Navient, formerly a part of Sallie Mae. Now privatized, Navient is the largest servicer of government student loans. As such, Dynarski says, “companies like Navient are the face of the student loan system, and often the source of enormous frustration for borrowers.” Continue reading "Talk About Chutzpah"

Stocks Lingering Near All-Time Highs

Hello MarketClub members everywhere. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq touched record highs for the second straight day following a batch of upbeat corporate earnings, while Emmanuel Macron's victory in the French presidential election improved risk appetite.

The VIX, Wall Street's "fear gauge," hit its lowest level in more than a decade earlier in the day. A lower VIX typically indicates a bullish outlook for stocks.

MarketClub's Mid-day Market Report

Oil prices headed lower today over concerns about slowing demand and the rise in U.S. crude output which has shaken traders faith in the ability of OPEC to rebalance the market.

Key levels to watch this week: Continue reading "Stocks Lingering Near All-Time Highs"

Silver Update: The Backup Plan

Aibek Burabayev - INO.com Contributor - Metals


In this post I’ve updated the charts to reflect the recent dramatic changes in the silver market.

Chart 1. Silver Weekly: Triple Support

Weekly Silver Chart
Chart courtesy of tradingview.com

On the weekly chart above, there is a mixture of reconstructed trend lines (gray lines) set in the previous update and newly added lines, which highlight the important support levels nearby.

The silver price has passed the double support (gray former resistance + gray support) set at the $17.5 mark like a hot knife through butter two weeks ago. The three red bearish weekly candles from the top erased all of the earlier gains and even broke below the previous low at the $16.84 mark. Continue reading "Silver Update: The Backup Plan"