This week bulls have operated in a news vacuum and yet there’s a been a string of bearish news:
China worries include potential corporate bond defaults and an 18.1% YOY decline in exports;
Wednesday featured a surprising decline in EU Industrial Production -0.2% vs the 0.5% expected;
Many are awaiting an explanation of the Malaysian Airline disaster;
And lastly, and perhaps not so obvious, is the Obama administration plans to release and/or sell 5 million bbls of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to test markets distribution abilities.
Frankly, the last point is a warning shot to Russia of another weapon, oil prices, designed to hit Putin in the pocket book. In the meantime, more Russian soldiers and tanks are heading to the Ukraine border in a menacing manner.
In this environment volume has weakened making it easy for high-frequency trader wise guys to hunt down stops and create a little more volatility in markets.
Taking conditions together, risks are rising as gold and bonds advance in price.
Leading markets higher Wednesday included: Gold (GLD), Gold Miners (GDX), Silver (SLV), Silver Miners (SIL) Utilities (XLU), Bonds (TLT), Semiconductor (SMH), and Biotech (IBB).
Leading markets lower Wednesday included: Industrials (XLI), Financials (XLF), Homebuilders (ITB), Japan (EWJ), Russia (RSX), S outh Kore a (EWY), Hong Kong (EWH), Germany (EWG), London (EWU), Emerging Europe (GUR), EAFE (EFA), Oil (USO), Natural Gas (UNG), Commodity Tracking ETF (DBC) and Sugar (SGG).
Today we featured a short video on SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) from both weekly and daily chart perspectives.
The top 20 market movers by percentage change in volume whether rising or falling is available daily.
Volume Wednesday was modest and breadth per the WSJ was positive.
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