Business

There has been an odd shift when it comes to US sentiment toward home ownership: while in the past, the higher home prices rose the greater the demand was for housing (leading ultimately to the housing debt bubble of 2006), this time around we are getting increasingly more frequent indications of just the opposite.

Some have started to notice: as we noted one week ago, in its traditionally cheerful assessment of the US housing market, the NAR's Larry Yun snuck in an unexpected warning:

The recent weakness in Silver has done nothing to dissuade precious metal 'hoarders' from buying-the-dip. Silver ETF holdings rose 846 metric tons in March (so far) - the biggest jump since August 2013 - to the highest since April 2015.

And all of this buying has occurred as prices dropped to one-month lows, as it seems - like China and Russia - taking advantage of lower precious metal prices amid the collapse of central bank credibility around the world.

Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Since February, major investors have predicted that oil prices were poised for a huge rally. Hedge funds and money managers piled into bets on rising oil prices, going long on the crude rally.

Short sellers were squeezed, and the stampede become too much for many, resulting in a large liquidation of shorts. The short selling drove the rally, increasing oil prices by about 50 percent since early February.

Three weeks ago, in the aftermath of the initially disappointing market reaction to the ECB's lack of further NIRP euphoria which sent stocks (at first) lower, various technicians came out with calls that the bear market rally is over, perhaps most notably Evercore ISI's Rich Ross who said "My Bullish tactical call is over. While we have repeatedly highlighted 2030 as our upside target, the rapid post ECB reversals in the cross asset technicals dictates that we abandon our tactical view at this time in favor of a far more defensive posture.

Following last night's API-reported near-expectations build in crude, DOE reports a smaller-than-expected 2.3mm build (against expectations of a 3.1mm build) and draws in Cushing, Gasoline, and Distillates. Oil prices surged on this. Production is more in focus now as it has fallen 9 of the last 10 weeks to its lowest since Nov 2014.  Crude prices dropped pre-data, then spiked,. but are struggling to maintain gains.

Of course, crude is soaring on the heels of Yellen's dove-tardiness.

API Details: