Many investors ignore the bond market as it is not as ’sexy’ as the stock market. What most fail to understand is that the global bond market is much larger than the stock market, according to Standard & Poors, the global bond market is close to $123.5 trillion (2020 totals), with $46 trillion of that in the US. By comparison, the global stock market

To be a successful investor you need to follow the global flow of capital. If you want to understand what is happening in the markets and why, you need to know what is happening in  the bond markets.

There are a few of ways to make money by investing in bonds:

  • Buy and hold bonds to maturity and collect interest payments, usually twice a year.
  • The second way is to is to profit by selling the bond at a price that’s higher than you paid for it
  • The third option, one that most aren’t aware of, is to use Exchange traded funds (ETF) which allow you to be long or short bonds. ETFs trade just like stocks, and you can buy or sell them with a click of your mouse.

We cover bonds, currencies, equities, commodities and precious metals in the Trend Letter, which is published for subscribers every Sunday afternoon.

Market Notes

Market Notes – March 13/23

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US stocks finished Monday mixed as volatile trading gripped Wall Street after federal banking regulators took aggressive actions to stem the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure.

First Republic Bank led a decline in bank shares Monday that came even after regulators’ extraordinary actions Sunday evening to backstop all depositors in failed Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and offer additional funding to other troubled institutions. First Republic is now down ~80% since February 2/23.

Many of the bank stocks were halted repeatedly for volatility throughout the day.

With fear of a banking crisis, bonds spiked as investors ran to safety.

With the collapse of these banks, the market is now changing its tune on Fed rate hikes.

The $US was down with expectations that the Fed will slow their rate hike efforts. We will see.

Gold spiked higher as a safe-haven play.

Oil continued its decline. Could be seeing a great buying opportunity soon.

US CPI data is out  tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Market Notes

Market Notes – June 13/22

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The S&P 500 dropped back into a bear market within the first 30 minutes of trading today. The index is now down over 20% from its January high, marking the lowest level since March 2021. The Dow plummeted 2.79% while the Nasdaq fell 4.8%. Recession fears are growing amid crippling inflation and people are pulling out of their positions before the situation worsens.

For the last six months we have warned that in bear markets, relief rallies typical fail to make new highs and in fact tend to make new lows.  Our Trend Letter and especially our Trend Technical Trader (TTT) services have been using hedging strategies to protect our portfolios from these violent bear markets and even to profit from them.

Bear markets typically have three phases. The first stage is a sharp decline, followed by a rebound, and then a drawn-out fundamental downtrend. This is likely where we are now and we are likely to see some strong relief rallies, followed by deep corrections.

If you have yet to put any hedging strategies in place, we should be due for a rally very soon, which would be an opportunity to put in such a strategy.  If you need assistance on how to hedge, seriously think about subscribing to TTT at a 50% discount. Click here to subscribe.

The Nasdaq representing the tech stocks is now down over 32% since its high in November.

The S&P 500 is now officially in a bear market, having dropped over 21% since its high at the start of January.

The Canadian TSX has fared much better thanks to energy sector. The TSX is down ~10% and has not yet hit new lows.

Volatility spiked over 22% today.

The $US continues to be a safe-haven play in this bear market, testing recent high.

On Friday Gold jumped along with the $US as a safe-haven play. Today it fell off – very inconsistent and frustrating!

Stay tuned!