Under The Radar Moves

As we wrap up and head off to enjoy our weekend, it seems appropriate to highlight some big movers from the week that you may have missed.

The equally-weighted biotech ETF $XBI was up a cool 13.98% this week, buoyed by some M&A activity. 

Technical analysts are pointing to the ETF rebounding at the same level it has back to mid 2017. Meanwhile, fundamental analysts are pointing to measures that suggest the sector has gotten cheap overall given many companies’ major cash piles.

Additionally, while everyone in the commodity market is focused on oil and energy-related futures, there are some big moves happening elsewhere.

Copper was down 6.96%, its third week in a row of losses, and settled at 16-month lows.

Meanwhile, agricultural commodities like Wheat, Soybeans, Corn, and others are quietly coming off their highs.

Cotton had its second major down week, falling nearly 30% since the start of June.

The move lower in commodities may be coming as the market reassesses demand amid rising recession fears. As they like to say in the commodities markets, “the cure for higher prices is often higher prices.

Oil & Gas Sector Loses Its Energy

After a strong run throughout the summer, it’s been a rough two weeks for energy-related commodities and stocks. Today, an accelerating decline helped bring the sector back to the forefront of investors’ conversation. Let’s take a look at why. 👇

In very short-term fundamental news, gasoline inventories surprised to the upside today on weak demand. That caused the commodity to extend its recent selloff. But more importantly, we also saw heating oil and crude oil selloff in tandem after holding relatively strong during gasoline’s pullback.

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Palladium Pops In “Dash For Trash”

One of the key themes we’ve discussed since early November is money looking for a new home in beaten-down areas of the market. That theme continued today with the Federal Reserve confirming the market’s rate cut bets with a dovish statement and projections. 💸

We saw significant rallies in stocks like Carvana, Upstart, SoFi Technologies, Lucid Group, Rocket Companies, and many more highly-shorted names. But it’s not just happening in the stock market. Assets across the board rallied, including one of this year’s worst performers, palladium.

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Sugar Hits Sweet Spot As Gold Shines

It was a slow day out there, but several commodities caught traders’ eyes. Let’s see which ones. 👀

First up is sugar futures, which have experienced a nearly 30% decline since the beginning of November. While its major decline is one reason to be on people’s radars, technical traders say prices have reached the 20-20.50 area that served as an inflection point over the last two years.

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Gold Soars To All-Time Highs

About a week after the chatter around gold began to pick up on Stocktwits, the shiny metal is hitting new all-time highs. But still, some are perplexed as to why it’s rallying. 🤔

Bears argue that gold should not be rallying in the current environment. After all, inflation continues to trend back toward the Fed’s 2% target, and the economy is holding up well thanks to a strong labor market and consumer spending. And with the risk-free rate still above 5%, some investors and traders argue there are better alternatives to gold and precious metals as a group.

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