Finance Roundtable

I stopped out on the way back up through 1250 today.  It tested down through its 20 day average on Wednesday but didn't stay below for long.  There is some chance the bounce back was expiry related but gold continued higher after the expiration.  Any trapped longs from Monday's ...

I sold the August gold contract with a stop near today's peak.   There are a few reasons driving the trade

1) I don't think the movements in gold are widely understood.  I mentioned (on Twitter) Fred Wilson's article on why he thought gold was a poor ...

A few quick links:

Australia's ability to service foreign debt more dependent on strong commodity prices  than housing.  (datadiary.com)

The permabears: where are they now? (Businessweek.com)

Gold holdings of the GLD exchange trade fund reached a record high. (Marketwatch.com)

The Canadian ...

This is a very good insiders account of the market microstructure that led to the flash crash and snap rebound.  From an interview with Tradeworx CEO, Naraj Narang:

...So, the market was ripe for a catastrophic event, because it was so saturated with stop orders, all it needed was a ...

Alphaville points out that the Spanish Credit Default Swap (CDS) curve has joined the Greek and Portuguese curves in inverting.  They explain it as the market pricing in a higher likelihood of default in the early years of the curve.

My explanation would be that the market is ...

Participants look set to continue adding back the risk jettisoned over the last few weeks.

It will be interesting to see how bonds respond today with non-farm payroll numbers typically bringing the volume that allows for big moves.  I would expect with momentum weakening in the recent rally ...

"The short story is that the escalation in housing costs has been mainly motivated by underlying demand- and supply-side fundamentals, not leverage as some doomsayers would have us believe. "

I was doing some house cleaning, tagging old entries and came across something I wrote in 2005 on central bank policies:

On a related note, foreign CBs will not turn net sellers of dollar assets. They will stop adding to USD reserves which still creates a substantial problem for ...

I got bullish a bit early on equities last week as the Euro bounced and it felt like panic was in the air on the day of the German trading bans.  Still the pattern in stocks looks constructive for the short-term ...

From Marketwatch:

Marin Capital Partners, a hedge fund that once oversaw about $2 billion in assets, is shutting down because the firm sees few opportunities in the convertible arbitrage and credit arbitrage strategies it follows.

Marin, which has moved most of its investments into cash, will ...