Business

Submitted by Nicholas Colas of DataTrek Research

Today we want to expand on our recent thoughts on “What are retail investors buying right now?” We showed last week, courtesy of Fidelity Investments data, that mom-and-pops are still adding to positions even on breakouts in US equities. Further, the names at the top of the retail investor league table tend to be single stock Tech names rather than ETFs. Yesterday, for example, Fido’s retail customers were net buyers of NVDA, AMZN, and BABA and those names were the most heavily traded.

Following last night's API-reported huge product inventory builds, bulls were hoping DOE would rescue WTI/RBOB prices but it did not as the dat confirmed a huge crude draw and even bigger product build (gasoline's biggest weekly build since January). Adding to the pain, US crude production rose to another new record.

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

Will Republicans and Democrats agree on a budget, and avoid a government shutdown after midnight Friday?

I’d say the odds are 50/50. Actually, I put the odds of a shutdown at about 55%. There’s certainly enough substance here to be wary.

After two rate hikes earlier in the year, one of which caught traders by surprise, moments ago the Bank of Canada announced that it had kept its rate on hold at 1.00% as expected.

For a second, it seemed that the broad risk-off wave that started in Asia, swept Europe and pressured US futures was here to stay. And then, the signal all algos had been waiting for emerged: Gartman just flip-flopped back to bearish.

From Gartman's latest letter: