Business

Authored by Craig Wilson via The Daily Reckoning,

Jim Rickards joined Boom Bust and host Lindsay France to discuss the latest monetary policy moves from the Federal Reserve.

Following API's reported build in gasoline (and distillates), oil prices have chopped around amid Saudi headlines and OPEC jawboning, as all eyes are focused on gasoline inventories in the DOE report. An unexpedted draw in Gasoline (and Crude draw) sent prices higher initially, but another surge in production capped some of the gains and prices fell back.

API

Following April's declines across the home sales data (as well as a dip in homebuilder optimism), existing home sales in May surprised positively (up 1.1% versus -0.4% exp) and follows a small upward revision to April's drop.

First-time buyers accounted for 33 percent of all sales in May, down from 34 percent in the prior month.

Inventory of available properties fell 8.4% from May 2016 to 1.96m, the 24th straight year-over-year decline.

Growth in home sales year-over-year has slowed...

One of the reasons for the recent historic flattening in yield curves is not just the ongoing disappointment in inflation prints which have missed expectations for the past three months, but also the ECB's recent sharp downward revision to its inflation forecasts, which as it revealed in its latest policy meeting, were cut across the board, with HICP now expected to drop from 1.6% to 1.3% in 2018, sending Bund yields tumbling.

That the sharp drop took place even with the ECB's balance sheet rising to record highs of €4.232 trillion as of the latest week...

Having been bullish of stocks in recent weeks, Dennis Gartman is starting to turn in the other direction. The catalyst for his latest bout of skepticism, aside from stocks having been "universally lower" when he posted his daily note sometime in the early morning (that is rapidly changing) are, well, the stars - namely that today is the Summer Soltice. We'll let him explain.