Investors look to Fed for further clues on rates

When the Federal Reserve offers its latest word on interest rates this week, few think it will telegraph the one thing investors have been most eager to know: When it will slow its bond purchases, which have kept long-term borrowing rates low.

The Fed might choose to clarify a separate issue: When it may raise its key short-term rate. The Fed has kept that rate near zero since 2008. It's said it plans to keep it there at least as long as unemployment remains above 6.5 percent and the inflation outlook below 2.5 percent.

Unemployment is now 7.6 percent; the inflation rate is roughly 1 percent. Continue reading "Investors look to Fed for further clues on rates"

Option Trade of The Week

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Today's Video Update: Walmart, Ammo and The Constitution

Hello traders everywhere! Adam Hewison here, President of INO.com and Co-creator of MarketClub, with your mid-day market update for Monday, the 29th of July.

It Is All About Commerce, That Is What Makes America Strong
Over the weekend I stopped at Walmart (NYSE:WMT), as I needed to purchase some Allen wrenches to make some adjustments to my new bicycle. I was standing in Walmart next to where they sell guns and I ran into Dave and Joe, two regular, everyday Americans. Dave, a Walmart employee, was telling Joe that he could only buy three boxes of ammo when they had it in stock. With that comment, I decided to ask him why was Walmart, one of the largest retailers in the country, restricting purchases of ammo to everyday Americans?

The answer I got was that there is a shortage of ammo in America. Dave repeated that Walmart cannot get enough supply because Homeland Security has been buying vast amounts of ammo for what reason Dave did not know. Here is the point that I am making, by restricting Walmart and other companies, you're really not helping the employment picture. Especially when it's an artificial shortage brought on by the administration.

Now before I go any further, I just want to say that I do not own a gun, so I have no axe to grind on that front. But I do have an axe to grind with the administration that seems to go against everything that's in the Constitution. Mainly, the right to bear arms. The government is creating problems for business and employment when it steps in-between demand and supply chains that work efficiently when left alone. If history has taught us anything it is this, when you have any kind of restrictions or controls come into a free market, they never ever work. The free market ,with all its imperfections, is still more efficient and works better when it's left alone, than any government policy the world has ever seen. Continue reading "Today's Video Update: Walmart, Ammo and The Constitution"

Gold Chart of The Week

Each Week Longleaftrading.com will be providing us a chart of the week as analyzed by a member of their team. We hope that you enjoy and learn from this new feature.

Weekly Gold Report July 29th through August 2nd

Fasten your seat belts traders, for this upcoming week is about as full as can be with data in the US and across the pond. We begin the week with Pending Home Sales in the US and tonight Japan will report Industrial Production figures. Tuesday provides German CPI and Consumer Confidence number in the US. Traders will have to be up early to see what will likely be more disappointing unemployment figures in Europe, followed by the ADP Employment Report and the US GDP before the opening bell. A few hours after stocks open, we should breeze through the Chicago PMI report in anticipation of this month’s FOMC announcement and Interest Rate Decision where the FED is not expected to make any policy changes. Early on Thursday morning, we hear from the BOE and the ECB regarding their Interest Rates, followed by Weekly Jobless Claims in America, and finally ISM figures after the open. To close out the week, we will see Non Farm Payrolls followed by a speech from a FED Member. And try not to forget that we are still reporting earnings in the United States! Continue reading "Gold Chart of The Week"

Hand Off to a New Fed Chair is Well Timed

It is as notable as a 2nd term president handing off the big problems to the next guy, as George Bush did with Barack Obama in 2008; the changing of the guard at the Fed, that is.

Alan Greenspan oversaw the making of a stock bubble in the final phase of the great bull market ended in 2000.  He then instigated a credit bubble, which launched a housing bubble, made the credit hopped consumer feel wealthy and oh yes, built unsustainable distortions into the system through diced and sliced debt derivative vehicles of all kinds.

Then in 2006 he deftly made the hand off to Ben Bernanke.  Bernanke then dealt with the Maestro’s second aftermath as it began cropping up in 2007 and now, nearly 4.5 years into a cyclical bull market that has another 6 months or so to run if it is to match the two previous cycles (not a given), it is time once again for a hand off. Continue reading "Hand Off to a New Fed Chair is Well Timed"