United States

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.

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:

In the most specific finding to date about physical damage, AP reports that doctors treating the U.S. Embassy victims of mysterious, invisible attacks in Cuba have discovered brain abnormalities as they search for clues to explain the hearing, vision, balance and memory damage.

Today at 1pm, president Trump will announce the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but will sign a waiver delaying the relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to there for 6 months. Trump's decision to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem upends decades of American policy in the Middle East and risks inflaming violence in an already-tense region. And sure enough, the announcement prompted an immediate - and furious - response sparking Arab, Muslim and European opposition to a move that risks violent protests.