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Sam Kirtley: In this article we investigate the 2011 Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) silver margin requirement increases and what effect they have had. Margins necessarily need to rise and fall, to ensure there is minimal default risk in the market, but the system the CME utilizes to achieve this has a lot Read more…
Przemyslaw Radomski: Forty Five (45) days after the end of each quarter, the top hedge fund managers are forced to release data on their long positions to the Securities and Exchange Commission. They probably do it with great reluctance, but it does give us a keyhole through which we can peek into their investing Read more…
Bill Luby: Ten months have passed since the last time I attempted to graphically depict all the VIX-based exchange-traded products. At that time there were 16 such securities; now that number has swelled to 31 and two have closed their doors (IVO and VZZ) along the way. Read more…
Matt Tucker: In a video blog a few months ago, I recounted – much to the amusement of my co-workers — the trouble I ran into trying to buy a municipal bond for my personal account. Read more…
Tony Daltorio: Emerging market stocks are cheap. In fact, they are trading at levels 35% cheaper than their 15-year average. But when will they be cheap enough to lure traders back? Read more…
Richard Rittorno: For weeks we have been watching the euro weigh on Asian stocks. By this point, the link has become so ingrained that bad news in Asia can weigh on the euro. Technical factors are also in play ahead of the U.S. holiday. Read more…
Stoyan Bojinov: Domestic equity indexes were fairly flat on Tuesday, although the bulls gave way in the final hours of trading as ongoing deficit woes stemming from both sides of the Atlantic ocean paved the way for profit taking. On the home front, the Fed left interest rates unchanged as expected, and the Read more…
Kevin Kerr: When the clock strikes midnight on December 31 this year, many traders, fund managers and individual investors will be glad to ring in the New Year and hopefully better profits in 2012. This year has proven to be a challenge for even seasoned traders who have been trying to ride the volatility wave Read more…
The bad news keeps rolling in as the stronger European players are starting to weaken. A poor auction is showing the German bond losing appeal as well. There are more concerns that we will wake up to France losing its triple AAA rating. Spain actually sold 3-month bills at 5.11%, more than twice the Read more…
Jared Cummans: The past few weeks have seen a fair amount of volatility in what is arguably the world’s most popular commodity. Crude oil had been on a tear, surging from $75/barrel to a peak of $102/barrel last week, marking an increase of over 35% in less than two months. But as Euro zone debt woes weighted Read more…
Chris Vermeulen: The months of November and December are the second strongest back to back months for the financial markets. Many traders and investors use this time of the year to reap big gains as they close the year out. The fact that most traders and investors are sitting in cash and underweight stocks Read more…
Kent Moors: I am in Frankfurt, Germany (NYSEARCA:EWG) right now attending three days of meetings, and I must say they’re shaping up to be quite interesting. Read more…
Jared Cummans: As demand for alternative energy has soared in recent years so too has investor interest. Solar energy, while one of the youngest energy sources on the market, has quickly become a popular holding for investors of all kinds. The underlying thesis is appealing; solar has grown an average of 39% Read more…
Stocks edged lower on Tuesday on light trade. All of major indices dropped on the day, with the small-cap Russell 2000 (NYSEARCA:IWM) leading the move lower. The high beta index fell 0.8% yesterday. The S&P MidCap 400 shed 0.6% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) and the S&P 500 Read more…
Jeb Handwerger: The markets have spoken in response to the failure of the Super-committee to reduce spending in Washington with a major decline. This is less than a stellar review for currently elected officials going into the 2012 election. At this point, the marketplace is saying that the “Emperor’s Read more…
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