Weekly Preview
Stocks & Carry
Take a look at GB's PPI reading: above 7%, annualized. At this pace and intensity, sooner or later it will "bite".
Earnings are not as bad as was thinking, showing two things, at least for the Q under scrutiny, at present:
1- Both financial and housing issues don't seem to be spreading forcefully into other sectors.
2- It's starting to look like a mild "one", more like a slowdown with some probability of a short period of contraction (assuming that once we see consumer strength fading, most commodities will follow suit based on demand)
What should we make of "jobs" numbers? A lot of opinions go in favor of taking some heat off of this area of the economy, since by historical standards, readings don't seem that bad. Will try to explain what I got in mind about this, though it's not easy (because some numbers - don't have them),at least for me: the key to understanding why jobs strength remained amid housing slump is the retirement of "babyboomers". In (most) developed countries demographic pyramids are thin at the basis and wide on top. Now jumping to conclusion: imagine that for every year the amount of working age population trims, so what we get is the need of less jobs added to maintain the same percentage. To me, this is one of the reasons why we would get worried about numbers of jobs added (when compared with historical standards) and surprised at the level of unemployment. Now the economics of jobs and demographics: if the net number of working age population (new entrants in working age range - number of citizens that go over the working age range) in one year is negative, what this would mean is that, if all else stayed the same, it would actually by itself bring down the unemployment rate (we shoud not forget that it assummes the number of jobs or working positions in the economy are maintained). As a speculator don't feel that there is a need to delve into it further, because just need to mind this factor and use other alternative indicators to complement fundamental analysis. This was something that came to mind during weekend night out...that would like to share.
OPEC, one member, at least voiced concerns about cartel responsibility: this should pave way for the start of diminishing speculative belief that the situation might be getting out of control. OPEC has the power and it seems now...the sense of community to not let things derail. As a trader, I cherish it!
This week got some nice pieces of reports coming out not a particularly busy one on "big" numbers, but still portending enticing action:
For the US we'll have retail sales, housing starts & permits, ABC & Michigan consumer sentiment, Net Tic, and two that though not very significant financially are handy for economic forecasting, capacity utilization (specially at times when inflation is a worry) and business inventories (that complements former one).
Euro Area we got a lot coming from Italy and France, with likes of CPI industrial production (also in the US), trade balance & current account and French NFP, also German CPI.
GBP, got some readings coming out with a bias on inflation, from PPI, CPI, RPI to trade balance and something on jobs too.
From Switzerland got consumer sentiment and retail sales.
For Canada have auto sales and housing price index.
Japan with GDP, trade balance, industrial output, some on consumer sentiment and corporate goods price index.
Australia comin with business & consumer confidence.
Technical
Besides all past analysis we got the bearish weekly slow stochastics cross-over for the S&P (Can't believe how could've missed that one in the past week). Now this is a major one, to follow-up upon on the next weeks. I was short but got out with about an 8 or 9 point profit since daily is approaching oversold (slow stochastics) and waiting for another oportunity to get in. In terms of the "yin-yang" of markets still on the look out for possible recovery, not feeling that much strength on the bear side as expected, but still rather go with trend ("The trend is your friend, expept at the end when it bends"

).
U/chf
Still have this position but must say, to my temporary relief, that this position has seen worse days. Thinking of making it longer term based mostly on that weekly S&P cross-over.
Anyway gotta go for now, pick it up later for the rest of Forex trades & opportunities...