A bunch of different things, briefly:
-Gold looks like it is getting ready to make a sharp move. The only question is in which direction. A few “tells” perhaps – it is slowly stair-stepping higher over the past couple of weeks, forming an ascending triangle, and is now above the 10-day moving average. It looks like $1,420 is the level that needs to be broken through.
-Treasuries are still within the trading channel that dates back a year, on the high end of the range – but for several sessions they have also remained above 2.08% on the 10-year, and 3.28% on the 30-year, which were important resistance levels within the past 24 months. Of course, there are probably plenty of people who might argue that higher rates are the natural consequence of a “healthier” economy. I don’t think that’s what is going on. But I'm not doing anything about it either yet.
-As a corollary, the high yield market has fallen off a cliff lately (using HYG as the proxy). That may signal that rates will continue to rise, but not for good reason.
-I genuinely believe that the S&P 500 topped out on May 22nd. While there might be another rally that gets everyone excited, the key thing to watch is whether 1,687.18 gets taken out.
-The Nikkei continues to be a shit-show. Kyle Bass was right – Abe and Kuroda are going to need to go even bigger with their QE program.
-The Yen went as high as 103.75 against the U.S. Dollar (on May 22nd), and has now worked its way back to 100. It could very well fall back to about 97.20 or 94.50, given the huge move since last year, but regardless I still think it will continue to get weaker over time.
