Adam Horak's Blog – August 2008 Archive (16)

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT AND CORPORATE PROFITS: Second Quarter 2008 (Preliminary)



Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property

located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2008,

(that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to preliminary estimates released by the

Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.9… Continue

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT



SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA



In the week ending Aug. 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 425,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 435,000. The 4-week moving average was 440,250, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week's revised average of 446,250.



The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending Aug. 16, an… Continue

Debt auction:

The Treasury Dept. is set to auction off $32 billion worth of 2-year bond notes Wednesday, the largest auction of 2-year notes in history. A big shot of supply typically sends bond prices lower.

The auction for the 2-year note closes at 1 p.m. EST on Wednesday.

Oil prices:

Oil prices look to push higher as traders worried whether Tropical Storm Gustav might cut crude supplies that come out of the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Bond traders always watch oil prices… Continue

The Manager of the System Open Market Account reported on recent developments in foreign exchange markets. There were no open market operations in foreign currencies for the System's account in the period since the previous meeting. The Manager also reported on developments in domestic financial markets and on System open market operations in government securities and federal agency obligations during the period since the previous meeting. By unanimous vote, the Committee ratified these… Continue

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke

At the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Annual Economic Symposium, Jackson Hole, Wyoming

August 22, 2008

Reducing Systemic Risk









In choosing the topic for this year's symposium--maintaining stability in a changing financial system--the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City staff is, once again, right on target. Although we have seen improved functioning in some markets, the financial storm that reached gale force some weeks… Continue

Sun

Aug 10 9:30pm AUD RBA Monetary Policy Statement

Mon

Aug 11 2:00am EUR German WPI m/m 0.5% 0.9%

2:00am JPY Machine Tool Orders y/y -2.5%



2:45am EUR French Industrial Production m/m 0.5% -2.6%

4:30am GBP PPI Input m/m 1.0% 2.1%

4:30am GBP Trade Balance -7.4B -7.5B

4:30am GBP PPI Output m/m 0.5% 0.9%

8:15am CAD Housing Starts 210K 218K

8:30am CAD New Housing Price Index m/m 0.1% 0.0%

7:01pm GBP BRC Retail Sales Monitor y/y… Continue

Dollar's sharp broad based rally extends further today with the support of weakness in commodity prices. Gold breaches $860 level briefly and remains weak. Crude oil also dives to as low as 117.36 and is set to test this week's low of 117.11. Commodity currencies remain the biggest losers today with bearish rate expectation on RBA and RBNZ. Further pressure is seen in the Canadian dollar after the release of much worse than expected Jun employment report. Note that as we mentioned earlier, both… Continue

In the week ending Aug. 2, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 455,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week's unrevised figure of 448,000. The 4-week moving average was 419,500, an increase of 26,750 from the previous week's revised average of 392,750.



The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5 percent for the week ending July 26, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate of 2.5 percent.



The advance number for… Continue

Fundamental analysis is a method of evaluation by attempting to measure intrinsic value. Fundamental analysts study everything from the overall economy; current and future economic conditions to the financial conditions and future expectations along with what may be factored into the market.



Technical analysis is the evaluation of price or future price movements by studying statistics generated by market activity, such as past prices and volume. Technical analysts do not attempt to… Continue

As oil prices pull back and look more and more like the exit of a commodity bubble I want to introduce traders to the (Greater Fool Theory) this is the idea a lot of traders use when prices first begin there retracement.



The idea behind the greater fool theory is that it is possible to make money by buying in an overvalued market and later selling them at a profit because there will always be someone that is (a bigger fool) who is willing to pay the higher price.



When… Continue

Sun

Aug 3 6:45pm NZD Labor Cost Index q/q 0.8% 0.7%

7:50pm JPY Monetary Base y/y 0.4%

9:30pm AUD House Price Index q/q -1.1% 0.4%



Mon

Aug 4 3:30am CHF SVME PMI 53.4 54.9

4:30am EUR Sentix Investor Confidence -10.0 -9.3

4:30am GBP Construction PMI 37.6 38.8

5:00am EUR PPI m/m 0.8% 1.2%

6:22am USD Challenger Job Cuts y/y 46.7%

All Day CAD Holiday: Civic Holiday

8:30am USD Core PCE Price Index m/m 0.2% 0.2%



8:30am USD Personal… Continue

for those of you that tune into the radio shows, this is the trade that was setting up that James and I were discusing on air I was looking for this to the short side as you can see it has played nicely off the Fib Fan and 50day SMA after over extending the Day ATR using a float stratagy to pick up a quick 40 pips on this trade i will continue to adjust my stop on this position in case it breaks lower below the support at 103.00 but want to secure as… Continue

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JULY 2008



The unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, and nonfarm payroll employment

continued to trend down in July (-51,000), the Bureau of Labor Statistics of

the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment continued to fall in

construction, manufacturing, and several service-providing industries, while

health care and mining continued to add jobs. Average hourly earnings rose by

6 cents, or 0.3 percent, over the… Continue