Previous articles and posts of interest.

Deprogram Yourself

Robot-48x48The title of this article is not an assumption that you, astute reader, are little more than a robot following the direct and implied commands of other robots when trying to make logical sense of the state of modern financial markets.  Personally, I have found that I need to stay on a path of post-deprogramming maintenance in order to stay right with a complex market backdrop.

On an inward-looking basis, we as investors and traders are faulty humans going up against robots (Ref. Rise of the Quantitative Robots) that are much smarter than we are with numbers, with data mining and with extrapolation.  What do we have, puny little human brains with all associated biases, ego distortions and other faults?  Yes, that is us.

We can mitigate these things by committing to double check our egos, first and foremost making sure we realize that we will err, we are not the best there is and the market does not care even one little bit about us.  We can commit to being the best ‘me’ we can be.

(more…)

Comments Off on Deprogram Yourself

Macro Changes and Future Inflation Problems

Ever since beginning the ‘Macrosom‘ theme in July (and updating it here), NFTRH has been managing macro changes that would positively affect the gold sector, and quite possibly have a negative effect on broad stock markets.  Early on in the precious metals bear market we noted they were “in the mirror” and opposite the stock market, which on the post-2011 cycle has been the beneficiary of the Fed’s inflation, instilling confidence in their policies by conventional market participants (after all, the right assets were going up on this cycle).  In August, it appeared that the first real thrust in the direction of our macro theme kicked in as the stock market cracked.

The mechanism of this confidence racket, which allowed the promotion of inflation right through QE 3, has been a global deflationary force muting inflation signals and providing the US with a Goldilocks benefit as the US dollar strengthened.  To this day the economy continues to ‘service itself’.  Manufacturing and exports weakened under the regime of the strong USD, but those strong dollars bought a lot of services (which make up the vast majority of the economy) and consumer-related commodities.

(more…)

Comments Off on Macro Changes and Future Inflation Problems

NFTRH Gold CoT Analysis Affirmed

Jordan Roy Byrne and Steve Saville are people that I think are highly knowledgeable when it comes to gold and the gold mining sector.  So this is not a post taking a shot at anyone.  Jordan focuses nearly exclusively on the gold sector and in my opinion does a good job either being right, or getting right when adjustment is needed.  He moves forward without hype, bias or ego.  Steve Saville is more diversified and a real sharp pencil in the drawer in his own right.

This morning Saville highlights Jordan’s video discussion of the gold Commitments of Traders alignment and why it is not necessarily to be feared in the manner that a certain hyperbolic technical analyst out there (30,000 [CoT] coffins anyone?) would have enthralled gold bugs believe.  Jordan’s video is here.

I purposely keep my public writing about the gold sector limited because there is enough noise out there in this overly noisy segment of the market.  But in NFTRH, we have been noting that if this is a bull market (folks, it’s not technically confirmed no matter what the pompom brigade would have you think) that “bear market rules are different than bull market rules” and so it is very possible that the current bearish CoT does not have to mean anything near what it has meant during the 2011-2015 bear market.  Indeed, in my opinion the worst thing about it is not the net short Commercials or the net long Specs, it is the over bullish little guy (small Specs).

While having all due caution in the face of the negative CoT buildup, the graphs below and the comments after them were when we began speculating about a possible change to “bull market rules” with respect to the CoT.  We reached back to the start of the bull market early last decade for reference.  It should be noted that Jordan subscribes to NFTRH, I assume for its coverage of the overall macro markets.

I am trying to avoid sounding territorial, but in this racket sometimes it’s about not being too shy to toot your own horn.  Toot toot…

From NFTRH 384 on February 28:

If I may affix my tin foil hat for a moment, let’s recall that in 2012 as the Fed announced full on un-sanitized QE(3) to take over from the expiring Operation Twist, the precious metals complex exploded higher. Many, including myself thought this policy would prove bullish. But that view was wrong because the CoT said it was wrong.

(more…)

Comments Off on NFTRH Gold CoT Analysis Affirmed

The Clown Show Has Come and Gone

The opening segment from this week’s edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole has a little fun with the post-FOMC market situation.  Unfortunately, there is all too much reality in this clowning around.  From NFTRH 387:

Our main theme has been that the ironclad post-2011 confidence in the Federal Reserve among conventional market participants would slowly but surely start to fade because macro parlor tricks, so vigorously employed by the Bernanke Fed, were only tricks or in some cases (Operation Twist) borderline magic, after all.

clowncar

At biiwii.com (still unsure if or in what capacity the site may reappear) we used to have fun with clown car videos, as the various Fed members piled out honking horns, doing somersaults and shouting incomprehensible phrases and announcements.

Like Rosco’s clown car above, that is all fading away now. The pretense that the Fed is the steward of a sound financial system and currency has been stripped away. We are no longer anticipating a waning of confidence. In rolling over last week and playing dead, the Fed announced for all the world to see that it is no more secure or respectable than the clown known as ‘the Draghi’, Kuroda the Klown or the troupes in Canada, Australia, England and China’s Central Planning.

The US Fed, through no good work of its own was the beneficiary of a Goldilocks environment in which global economic pressures resulted in capital flight into the US.

(more…)

Comments Off on The Clown Show Has Come and Gone

Until Today

Euro 50 Flips Draghi the Bird, S&P 500 Fails at a Key Parameter, Semi's are Fundamentally Bearish and Gold Has a Sentiment Washout Within its Bear Market Markets Had Been…

Comments Off on Until Today

From NFTRH 364; S&P 500: Is it This Simple?

S&P 500: Is it This Simple? Excerpted from this week's edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 364... In an age of Algorithms, High Frequency Trading, Quant-injected performance engines…

Comments Off on From NFTRH 364; S&P 500: Is it This Simple?

Macrocosm Revisited

Excerpted from the October 4 edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 363.  Reference previous articles on this theme, Macrocosm, Microcosm & Microcosm Expanding... Here again is our representation…

Comments Off on Macrocosm Revisited

Microcosm Expanding

NFTRH 353 introduced the idea of a Macrocosm, a planetary representation of elements that need to come into place for a real investment stance on the gold stock sector (as…

Comments Off on Microcosm Expanding