I keep hearing a lot of chatter about how falling oil prices are a big boost to the US consumer currently.  And you’d think they would be given the 20% …

Greed has quickly turned to fear as our manic friend, Mr. Market, resumes his generally bi-polar behavior.   The note below is a fear barometer courtesy of CitiGroup (via Business …

Here’s some good perspective on the long-term trend in US government bond yields via Chart of the Day:

Bullish sentiment is near a two-year low in the latest AAII Sentiment Survey, while bearish sentiment has spiked by 17.5 percentage points over the past two weeks.

Goldman Sachs has developed an indicator that I’ve previously discussed here.  It’s essentially an attempt to create a better real-time indication of global economic growth than the global PMI’s and …

The CRB commodities index broke through the apparent support level discussed earlier. Commodities continue to be pressured by the global slowdown and Eurozone driven market stress. Recent dollar strength also added momentum to the selloff.

The NEA released new data on Chinese energy consumption showing just 3.7% year over year growth.  That’s 3.3% lower than the March reading.  China Scope Financial has the details on …

When I was an reconnaissance helicopter pilot in the Army many years ago, that was a popular saying that was passed down by the more experienced pilots, some of whom had flown during the Vietnam War. It was meant to convey our own frailty, and the foolishness of being too eager about finding the enemy’s location.

The CRB commodity index has been a good relative indicator of global risk appetite. During stressed conditions the expectations for global growth declines, forcing commodities lower. Oil prices for example respond to the upside during periods of economic growth. But they also move up due to regional tensions such as those associated with Iran. The CRB index on the other hand tends to respond mostly to growth expectations only.

Citigroup’s Economic Surprise Index has been very highly correlated with equity vs bond returns over the last 5 years and recent trends point to a continued negative outlook for equities …