Euro Under Pressure By Phil Streible The financial sector continues to get hit, and the fallout is spreading globally. After the U.S. government outlined plans at the start of the week to bail out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, woes at Lehman Bros dealt the markets another blow. Lehman, heavily exposed to troubled [...]

Coping With New Commodity Trends By Phil Streible I’ve had a lot of clients wondering how to cope with the dramatic shifts we’ve seen in many commodity markets. We are seeing more and more headlines of economic malaise spreading overseas, and commodity prices are falling amid a worldwide slowdown. Crude oil has fallen below $108 [...]

Heading into the FOMC meeting announcement (expected at 1:15 p.m. CT) CME Fed funds futures imply odds of 95% that Fed policymakers will keep the short-term interbank lending rate (known as the Fed funds rate) steady at 2%. Lind Plus Senior Market Strategist Carol Hurley thinks the meeting will be a non-event, but watch for [...]

Euro Poised for a Breakout By Richard Ilczyszyn and Phil Streible The euro seems poised to make a breakout against the U.S. dollar, but the big question is which direction. It could go either way as we have global inflation, and at the same time, economic weakness impacting the currencies. We think a strangle is [...]

U.S. Economy: Employers Cut Payrolls for Sixth Straight Month – Bloomberg Stay-at-Home Grillers for 4th Still Pay More for Food, Gas – Bloomberg ECB Hikes Key Rate to 4.25% – MarketWatch.com Oil Demand May be a Victim of its Own Success – MarketWatch.com Bush and Paulson Boxed in Corner on Dollar Mantra – Reuters Housing [...]

Futures Forecast: July By Jeff Friedman Many of the big-picture themes holding back the economy from earlier this year still haven’t been resolved, and I don’t see them being resolved in July either. So it could be another difficult month for stock market investors, and cash-strapped consumers. Let’s take a big picture view of the [...]

August crude oil futures hit a new record high above $142 a barrel in electronic trading, attributed to a decline in the U.S. dollar as well as comments from OPEC’s president that prices could top $150 a barrel this year. There is also speculation the European Central Bank might raise interest rates when it meets [...]

U.S. Corn soars to record as crop flooded OPEC Chief: Oil-Price meeting to involve heads of state Worries mount as world’s farmers push for big harvest Airlines look for new ways to save on fuel Tomato industry in “complete collapse” ECB chief wans against oil shock