Courtesy of Scott Martindale, Senior Managing Director, Sabrient
With the extreme uncertainty around things like: earthquake, hurricane and wildfires wreaking widespread devastation, future Fed stimulus and QE3, Obama’s jobs plan, European solvency, it’s no wonder that investors are returning to gold this week, even with the oversold rally in stocks that pulled the market from the edge of a mid-August abyss. There are still plenty of market observers who are predicting an imminent panic selloff to keep the proverbial wall of worry intact.
Gold briefly pulled back early last week from its incredible bullish run, mostly due to profit-taking ahead of the Fed statement last Friday, but starting on Thursday through this week it has shown renewed strength. Notably, Comex operator CME Group (CME) raised margin requirements for trading gold futures (by 27%) for the second time this month on Wednesday. But that hasn’t stopped the gold buyers. It’s not so much an inflation hedge, but more about confidence in government and the financial system.
Now we head toward the Labor Day holiday weekend and await President Obama’s speech next week, when he plans to unveil his jobs package. Rather than being a sleepy week, I’ve been surprised that trading volumes have been steadily climbing from Monday’s low levels – but that might change as we head into the end of the week.
Financials, Industrials, and Materials have led the charge this week through Wednesday. But for the full month of August, Financials and Energy were the worst performers. Both sectors finished the month about 10% lower, and despite the S&P 500 finishing the month with seven up days out of eight in which it gained +8.5%, it was down -5.7% for the month – its worst monthly performance since May 2010.
Defensive sector Utilities performed the best during August with an advance of 1.7%. In fact, the more defensive sectors of Utilities and Consumer Goods are the only ones above their 200-day simple moving averages, and only Utilities is above the 50, 100, and 200-day. Investors have been attracted to the relative safety and/or higher yields. Despite the oversold rally, the other U.S. sectors all remain below their major moving averages.
The Federal Reserve printed money in QE1 and QE2 to effectively bail out the stock market and provide the psychological “wealth effect” that housing has not been able to do. Rather than create inflation or stagflation, their efforts have…
