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Richard Shaw (QVM Group) submits: Stocks had a good week this week. They may follow through, or they may stall and reverse. Only time will tell, and that time is near. While we hold positions in some strong single country funds, and some conservative high yield US individual stocks, we have been mostly on the sidelines for a few months.Complete Story »

optionMONSTER submits: By Chris McKhann Emerging Markets have followed our markets higher over the last four days, but the big options volume in one important exchange-traded fund is positioning for the downside.Complete Story »

Wealth Daily submits:By Christian DeHaemerIt's time to stop the whining on housing, jobs, and banks. If you don't like the current state of affairs in Washington and the politicians' cozy relationship with Wall Street — then vote the bums out. If you don't like the way the fiscal picture has shaped up — then stop believing the banksters and find a better place to invest.Complete Story »

Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit:
August wasn't a very good month for risky asset classes. Of the 58 key ETFs highlighted below, fixed income, gold, silver, the yen, utilities, and Hong Kong were the only ones in the green during the month. The S&P 500 tracking SPY ETF declined 4.50% in August, the Midcap 400 ETF (IJH) declined 4.89%, and the Smallcap 600 ETF (IJR) declined 7.60%. Financials and Industrials were the worst performing sectors in August, while Utilities, Telecom, Health Care, and Consumer Staples held up the best. Italy (EWI) was the worst performing country ETF in August with a decline of 8.89%, and France (EWQ) and Germany (EWG) weren't far behind. The major emerging market ETF -- EEM -- actually outperformed most developed countries with an August decline of 3.24%. Oil (USO) got hit hard during the month with a decline of more than 9%, while the natural gas ETF (UNG) did much worse at -22.78%. Gold (GLD) was up 5.71% in August and Silver (SLV) was up 7.68%. Of the major Treasury ETFs, TLT (20-years+) was up a whopping 8.04%.Complete Story »

ETF Prophet submits: (Click images to enlarge/ ETF Rewind Glossary) Equities finished the week in mixed fashion towards the bottom of their recent trading range, with the S&P 500 (SPY) lower by -0.7% and the NASDAQ 100 (QQQQ) higher by +0.4%. The biggest mover, however, was the QE-driven Treasury complex (TLT), higher by a whopping +3.7%. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that this security has risen to the top ranked ETF relative to its ten-month moving average. Week Thirty-Four of 2010 features another busy economic reporting calendar, including homes, durable goods, and the second GDP revision:Complete Story »

ETF Prophet submits: Click to enlarge (Click Image to Enlarge/ ETF Rewind Glossary) Having spent nearly the entire week in a downtrend, equities finished the period heavily oversold, as underscored by the extreme RSI chart readings below and the sea of red on the summary table above. This action left the S&P 500 (SPY) lower by a full -3.6%, even as the US Dollar (UUP) managed a rebound of equal magnitude. However, as oversold as price is, I am concerned by the market’s inability to bounce and will trail tight stops under Monday’s trade.Complete Story »

Erik van Dijk submits:In part 1 of this contribution we saw that international trade and direct investment variables indicate that emerging markets are getting more important, but China is the only country that can claim importance as a catalyst. It does not dominate yet, since the EU (in general, and Germany, in particular) and the United States do still play an important role as well.But financial markets do not just look to variables that are trade and investment related. A country's wealth and financial position, as measured by liquidity - or solvency - related variables is important as well. In this part we will analyze the foreign currency and reserves (indicator of liquidity) and the external debt positions (indicator of solvency) of a country. In both cases we will not just pay attention to the absolute level of these variables, but take into account relative size indicators as well.Complete Story »

World Market Pulse submits:Asia is home to several emerging and globalizing powers, including India and China but one nation that stands out but is not largely covered in the business media is Indonesia. Little is known about Indonesia in the investing circles despite being a country made up of some 17,000 islands, which is now the 4th most populous nation in the world. One striking feature that highlights Indonesia's growth in recent years is the fact that the country has managed to avoid recession during the global downturn, unlike some of its more export-reliant neighbors. Over the last decade, Indonesia has emerged as a vibrant and plural democracy. Its economy is buoyant and a new sense of confidence is evident both within its political leadership as well as its growing civil society. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, but the Islam practiced by the vast majority of its people is liberal, tolerant and accommodative.

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects Indonesia’s economy will expand 6% this year. The Chairman of Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board estimates growth of between 6% to 7%.

• The nation’s shares have climbed 12 percent this year and are Asia’s best performers barring Mongolia and Bangladesh, as foreign funds increased purchases after the central bank raised its growth forecast and Standard & Poor’s upgraded the nation’s sovereign debt ratings.

• Foreign investors moved more funds to Indonesian stocks in March, buying a net 4.92 trillion rupiah ($543 million) of shares after selling 1.58 trillion rupiah in the first two months this year, according to data from the Jakarta stock exchange.

• The Indonesian rupiah has risen 3.6 percent this year, the second-best-performing currency in Asia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A strong rupiah and low inflation have helped the central bank keep its key interest rate at a record low of 6.5 percent to support Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

• Indonesia's stock market index, the Jakarta Composite Index, broke its record high earlier this week as it reached 3013.40 points bringing its total gains this year to 19 %, the most among Asia’s 10 largest markets.

Indonesia has managed to avoid recession during the global downturn, unlike some of its more export-reliant neighbors. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are in recession and Malaysia and Thailand are likely slipping into a recession, too, analysts say.Complete Story »

Frederic Ruffy submits: SentimentVolatility picked up a notch on options expiration Friday. The table was set for early losses on Wall Street after BofA (BAC) and Citi (C) posted stronger than expected earnings, but fell short on revenues. Google (GOOG) also came under fire after reporting earnings that missed Street estimates. The early decline then gathered additional momentum after the latest U of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index showed a drop to 66.5 in July, down from 76 the month before and much worse than the 74.5 that economists had expected. After Thursday’s horrific manufacturing data, further evidence of deteriorating consumer sentiment is weighing heavily on stock prices. Add some expiration-related volatility to the mix and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 230 points heading into the final hour. The CBOE Volatility Index (.VIX) added 1.96 to 27.10. Trading is active, with 6.9 million calls and 7.1 million puts traded so far.Bullish FlowAction in Goldman Sachs (GS) continues. Total options volume is running 2.5X the average daily, with 109K calls and 76K puts traded. About half the volume is in the front-month July options, with players scrambling to buy and sell premium in reaction to volatility in shares and ahead of the expiration. The top trades of the day are in the October month, however, after a strategist apparently sold Oct 130 puts to buy the Oct 160 – 175 call spread. This bullish three-way spread traded at a 24-cent debit, 1750X. It’s max pay-off would be at $175 per share at the October expiration, or $27 above current levels, and would represent an increase in market value of about $15 billion. Shares are up $2.78 to $148 on news the investment bank has settled fraud allegations with the SEC for $550 million.Complete Story »

Promod Radhakrishnan submits:Ever since Q1 '10 calm was broken by the Greek crisis, markets have struggled to remain steady. VIX, VSTOXX and other volatility indices around the world are near 52-week highs and there is a very heavy sense of uncertainty across markets globally. The DJIA has already fallen close to 9% from the 10,500 levels in early January to 9600 levels as of today. Emerging market indices have also been as badly affected - the MSCI emerging market index for example is down over 8% YTD and the Shanghai index is down over 27%! It is perhaps safest to be in cash during this period of high volatility; but there might be an attractive risk-return play at current market levels.It is important to understand macro trends at this point:Complete Story »