Author: Scott Hoffman

China reported good trade numbers overnight and there is talked that Chinese inflation numbers for January will be better than forecast – they will be released tonight.  Europe continues to be a worry as beliefs grow...

Easing of Egyptian tensions is helping risk assets today.  Der Spiegel is reporting that Mubarak is going to Germany for “medical treatment”, allowing for a transfer of power.  However, the Euro is lower...

Markets are recovering from Friday’s Egyptian inspired selloff.  For the time being the situation is relatively peaceful and the Suez Canal remains open.  However, the situation remains fluid (pun...

I had a Twitter heckler of sorts today (I guess I should be glad that at least somebody read me). The big focus for the financial markets today was the FOMC meeting announcement.  As you would expect, market volatility...

Maybe everyone’s recovering from celebrating the Packers trip to the Super Bowl (I am anyway) but the markets are kind of lethargic this morning.  January Eurozone PMI showed strength, but the Euro isn’t getting...

This morning I was talking to a client of mine about a trade he had on.  He sold corn futures last week then proceeded to ride the market up to yesterday’s contract high.  Luckily he didn’t panic and cover...

Gold and silver had a dramatic selloff this morning.  If you knew the patterns to look for, you could have anticipated that there were good odds of a big move today.  This anticipation would have allowed you to take...

Stocks are a bit lower.  The NASDAQ is down relatively sharply on the Apple news.  I read that Apple is 20 percent of the NASDAQ, so that shouldn’t be a surprise.  There’s also some weakness attributed...

Last night I was checking email.  I get emails from LinkedIn that list activity for LinkedIn groups I belong to.  I have a love / hate relationship with these emails.  Maybe it’s just the groups I belong to...

This morning the USDA released a report giving all sorts of estimates and data for the grain markets.  The report was bullish; the USDA cut their estimates of stockpiles and world production of corn, soybeans and...