Various thoughts
Alyosha745
April 18...)
Juror 7 has been selected (Wall St. Silver)
In the news
Ukraine is losing. J-6ers might get a pass from SCOTUS, seriously. The press from Gaza implies a detente is imminent. The press from Iran implies detente is here. Yahoo Finance reports (via Reuters) foreign holdings of US treasuries rose to a record 8.7% of issuance in February at $7.95 trillion. Chinese holding of Ts fell 22 billion. In baseball the Yankees are in first place playing .684 ball, leading the Guardians (whoever they are) playing .667%.
In the markets this morning
COMEX copper prices rose to a new 2-year high yesterday on moderate volume of 160k, down from an elevated pace of 220k for several days last week. OI made 7-year highs in early April and remains a steady 305k. The record of 332k OI was marked in September of 2017 which could soon be broken. Something to keep in mind as May approaches.
This orderly up-auction of higher highs and higher lows for 12 of the last 14 sessions has been in force since March 27.Supply narratives are back and judging by the behavior of the trend, CTAs are actively adding length daily.
Copper seems to have gotten short shrift in the shadows of gold's run to new highs. But Gundlach's pet ratio belies copper's true performance. Gold entered the year at 540 pounds of copper to the ounce. The divisor and numerator of $4.42 for copper vs $2394 for gold this morning = 541.62. Pennies from heaven.
Oil prices fell on the NYMEX following what appeared to be pretty ordinary seasonal stats yesterday. I haven't been a fan of the 90s narrative particularly since the 2 oil market trades like soggy newspaper. John Dimicoli at Liquidity Energy attributed the sell off to a bloated spec rbob position and a call skew (ty Demo). Petroleum markets are in a single word, dull, imo.
And.. the plaid placement of bullish narratives can't make up for the fact that capacity way exceeds demand. As you can demand in America hasn't changed a teaspoon in 4 years. Whether or not Biden sells more SPR is a red herring, imo. We're holding 28 days stocks to us in commercial tanks, and we're producing 13.1 mmbpd with immenseof domestic capacity.
America is the third largest exporter of oil on the planet.
Heat cracks made new lows.
However, the spot gas crack is steady on the highs as the driving season looms because... the spice must flow.
In other markets bonds stabilized. The yen fell. Gold and silver seem well maintained at the highs on declining volume. Open interest is unchanged in both. No news is good news on the Comex. Grains resumed their aging trends lower in necrotic conditions. The story in grains is there is no story. Coffee and cocoa are relentless.
Terrible housing starts and permits data slaughtered the lumber market.
a quiet day in PM ETF holdings
My vibe,
'Sell in May and go away' is an adage of some consistent value when prices are high. Its origin is reputedly in copper, but a respected student of equities opined earlier in the week that first two weeks May are notoriously hard on stocks. And I read a piece yesterday that early June is historically no picnic for S and Ps. I suspect the BOJ is going to defibrillate the Yen one of these days. The central Bank swapped a negative rate policy for a negative currency policy, and everyone is blaming Powell's dollar for their woes, including the French. However, we are entering a happy time for grains. Just sayin'
Entirely my thoughts written for friends and sent to friends
Charts and data CQG and Bloomy