Housing Starts Declining, Trouble Ahead?

We had an unexpected big drop in housing starts. This is the third month in a row that the starts are down but not only where housing starts way down but building permits were also way down so that means that this trend is likely to continue. The last time we had three consecutive monthly declines it was in 2009. What was going on in 2009? Oh, the greatest recession since the Great Depression! (KB Home (NYSE:KBH), Lennar Corporation (LEN), SPDR S&P Homebuilders (ETF) (XHB), D.R. Horton (DHI))

A Hawkish Federal Reserve

We actually got a hawkish hike not only did the Federal Reserve raise rates but they did nothing to dampen expectations for future interest rate hikes. In fact Janet Yellen in her prepared remarks and in the press conference that followed was very upbeat, very optimistic on the economy not worried about anything and no longer talking about the need for some kind of confirmation that prior economic weakness was transitory. She thinks that it's clear skies as far as the eye can see.

Big Reversal In Bitcoin

It wasn't just the stock market that had big reversals I guess it was the crypto currencies as well particularly Bitcoin. You know, I mentioned the last couple of times that I was talking about Bitcoin and the kryptos, the shrinking market share that Bitcoin had in the crypto world and that continues right now. The market cap of Bitcoin is now down to about 40 percent of the total market cap of all the crypto currencies.

Gold Stocks: Performing Much Better

Gold stocks continued to trade much better than they have been, I mentioned that on my last podcast even though gold was down 11 dollars on the day, gold stocks were down but not that much, down just a little bit. (Newmont Mining (NEM), Barrick Gold (ABX), Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ), Goldcorp (GG))

Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) Has Some Catching Up To Do

The smaller gold miners if you look at the  Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) which is an index of junior gold mining stocks,  I I think this thing still has to move up 30 percent or so to get back to where it was when gold was lower than it is right now earlier this year.

Gold Hits A New High For The Year

The price of gold has been creeping higher and higher ever since it had that correction and by the way I think I did a pretty good job of nailing the correction, the fact that I said it would be a very shallow correction and I'm pretty sure that I nailed the the bottom. I came on and I did a podcast when it looked to me like the gold stocks were confirming an end of the correction in gold and gold did rally and initially gold stocks rallied to but then the gold stocks came back down and almost retested their lows, didn't quite do it. But the price of gold never came back down, the price of gold kept rising and rising and now finally yesterday the price of gold hit a new high for the year. (Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ), SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD))