Re-Cap of Key Markets for This Week
Stocks
The Dow made noise this week with its big up-day on Thursday - over 190 points. At the end of the week, it was up only 0.33%. For the year, it's up 5.12%. I continue to treat the general market as being in a huge rally within a bear market, based upon both my Dow Theory studies and the simple fact that stocks are historically overvalued.
Bonds
Yields on the 10-year and 30-year treasuries eased during the week, but wound up closing up with the 10-year at 3.49% and the 30-year at 4.6%. Yields on the 30-year had jumped over 3.7% a couple of weeks ago, and some were anticipating a bigger jump. But since then they've settle down. So while the Fed's quantitative easing hasn't resulted in these rates going down on an absolute basis, perhaps their program is preventing rates from going up more.
Mortgages
After pushing up over 5%, the rate on a 30-year fixed wound up the week back under 5% at 4.88%. So you can still get a 30-year fixed at historic lows - if you're looking to buy a house, or if you're in a position to re-finance.
U.S Dollar
The dollar may be the big story this week. It's drifted down to finish the week at 76.41. The reason that's significant is this: with all the trouble in the Middle East this week, you'd think it would have bumped up with so-called safe-haven buying, i.e., people buying dollars and U.S. treasuries as a safe place to put their money during turbulence.
Could it be that financial markets have made an assessment that the Middle East troubles aren't as bad as all that? If that were the case, oil would have settled down - but it didn't. It finished the week over $104/barrel, after all the reports that it had settled down - obviously misleading reporting by the notoriously clueless financial press. Also, gold hit an all-time record high this week. Plus silver hit it's highest price since 1980 - not an all-time high, but it continues to be on fire.
So the story with the dollar would be this: maybe, for the first time in modern times, people no longer consider the U.S. dollar a "safe haven." If that's true - and this week's action points towards it being true - it would mark a sea change, and an ominous sign that the dollar is being shunned. I wouldn't run for the hills yet, but this is really something worth us keeping our eyes on.
The Dow made noise this week with its big up-day on Thursday - over 190 points. At the end of the week, it was up only 0.33%. For the year, it's up 5.12%. I continue to treat the general market as being in a huge rally within a bear market, based upon both my Dow Theory studies and the simple fact that stocks are historically overvalued.
Bonds
Yields on the 10-year and 30-year treasuries eased during the week, but wound up closing up with the 10-year at 3.49% and the 30-year at 4.6%. Yields on the 30-year had jumped over 3.7% a couple of weeks ago, and some were anticipating a bigger jump. But since then they've settle down. So while the Fed's quantitative easing hasn't resulted in these rates going down on an absolute basis, perhaps their program is preventing rates from going up more.
Mortgages
After pushing up over 5%, the rate on a 30-year fixed wound up the week back under 5% at 4.88%. So you can still get a 30-year fixed at historic lows - if you're looking to buy a house, or if you're in a position to re-finance.
U.S Dollar
The dollar may be the big story this week. It's drifted down to finish the week at 76.41. The reason that's significant is this: with all the trouble in the Middle East this week, you'd think it would have bumped up with so-called safe-haven buying, i.e., people buying dollars and U.S. treasuries as a safe place to put their money during turbulence.
Could it be that financial markets have made an assessment that the Middle East troubles aren't as bad as all that? If that were the case, oil would have settled down - but it didn't. It finished the week over $104/barrel, after all the reports that it had settled down - obviously misleading reporting by the notoriously clueless financial press. Also, gold hit an all-time record high this week. Plus silver hit it's highest price since 1980 - not an all-time high, but it continues to be on fire.
So the story with the dollar would be this: maybe, for the first time in modern times, people no longer consider the U.S. dollar a "safe haven." If that's true - and this week's action points towards it being true - it would mark a sea change, and an ominous sign that the dollar is being shunned. I wouldn't run for the hills yet, but this is really something worth us keeping our eyes on.
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