Based on the feedback we have been receiving over the past few weeks regarding our weekly newsletter, we are changing the format of the BHBGroupTrader Market Spread Report. First, the capital markets comment will contain four sections, each pertaining to a different complex in the futures asset class: macroeconomic/equity, currency, interest rate, and commodity. Second, please note that in the ideas section, I will include only recommendations applicable to the futures market.

So much for the dog days of summer.  The week of August 10-14 promises to be one of this summer’s more pivotal weeks for the capital markets: equity markets will contemplate the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee Statement on Wednesday for clues regarding the strength of the economic recovery and associated monetary policy; the bond [...]

For this week’s Energy and Capital column, I consider the recent mega-investment wave in farmland in light of peak oil concerns, and think farmland may be the trade of the century.
Is Farmland the Trade of the Century?
What should a long-term investor invest in when stocks and bonds aren’t working very well?
I’ve been asking that question [...]

Don’t laugh. While we become ever-more convinced with each passing day that we are currently experiencing a deflationary depression that will take global equity indexes to levels way below their March lows before the end of 2009, we think the stock market can rise. You read it correctly. I am very excited and indeed, quite optimistic about the equity markets. For this week, at least.

The fundamental reality helped paint an altogether different technical picture from what we had last week, as stock prices (which just two weeks ago broke out of its bearish wedge formation on the upside) have now broken below the lower trendline of the bearish wedge, making the early-May move to 929 on the S&P 500 look like a classic head-fake. The heaviest volume occurred on Wednesday,[...]

In this week’s article for Energy and Capital, I survey the damage from recent extreme weather events around the world, consider the environmental consequences past and future, and argue that insufficient science on global warming is the very reason to take action, not an excuse for inaction.
With all due sympathy for my readers in the [...]