A Technical Stopping Point for Risk-Takers

There’s one important chart I wanted to show you today. I’ll get to that in a minute.

News wise, though, there’s nothing too exciting to talk about this morning; prices are little changed from where they finished yesterday ... and the day before that.

There is little on the data front – Canada reports retail sales numbers this morning. They’re expected to come in positive. It would seem that in-line or better-than-expected numbers would be USDCAD negative ... driving the Canadian dollar higher versus the buck. But how much of an impact could this have if risk isn’t cooperating?

Questions and few answers…

If we have learned one thing over the many years following markets it is this: If you are paying attention, there are always many more questions than answers. And if you are highly confident about future price action, you have either never traded real money or you haven’t a clue. The best it seems one can do is build a scenario based on some form of analysis that has worked in the past, and then pull the trigger on a trade.

I was graciously invited to speak at the Agora Financial conference in Vancouver this week (my invite is a mystery to me too).

Webinar & Report

PDF contains a link to watch the webinar and a 20 page "Euro Report".

Aussie angst and some feedback loops!

Given that Australia has effectively become a satellite country of China—a country we are told is “booming” with growth--does the news item from Bloomberg this morning strike anyone else as a bit odd? [Our emphasis]

July 17 (Bloomberg) -- The value of Australian exports plunged in the second quarter by the most in almost 25 years as coal prices tumbled 36.8 percent and the nation’s currency rose.