As more encouraging news supporting a global economic turnaround continues to flood newsstands can the rally be sustained? Consumer-spending constitutes the largest part of US GDP and in essence is a major driving force in an economic recovery. Encouraging news was just released indicating that over the first quarter of 2009 consumers boosted their spending at a 1.4% rate. However this was still a tad shy of the 1.5% growth rate estimated by experts last month. Another indicator that an economic rebound may be in sight is that a revised reading of the nation’s GDP suggests that the economy ...

With the equity markets 40-45% above where they were in March and the memories of the September 2008-March 2009 collapse fresh in investors' minds the speed at which capital could exit the market at the first signs of new risk is high.One of the potential new risks is the escalation of the foreign policy challenges facing President Obama from North Korea to the Middle East. With the banking system reliquified and the economy starting to show some of the intended benefits of the stimulus packages now we have another set of international issues that coupled with the overbought situation ...

Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Przemyslaw Radomski founder and editor of www.sunshineprofits.com.Last week volume declined while gold rose -- at the same time however gold prices declined. Volume usually confirms the direction in which the market is headed; this time it pointed to lower prices. It looked likely that gold would move lower in the short term. This is exactly what took place during the rest of the week: We had slightly higher prices on gold silver and mining stocks in the middle of the week but they closed lower on Friday. Of course the key ...

Ups and downs on financial markets were plentiful during the past week but investor sentiment on balance brightened on the back of constructive financial and economic data - capped by a better-than-expected US non-farm payrolls report on Friday. Rebecca Wilder (News N Economics) said in her weekly review of global economic reports:“It appears that the global economy has finally found the ripcord. The global economic reports are becoming saturated with signs of forming a bottom. Auto sales in Japan and the US are improving somewhat; exports are dangling in the double-digit loss rates; and GDP really couldn’t get much worse ...

Well the volatility picture here looks modestly different from other spots we've looked at lately. But not all that much. Everything changes hands at volatility levels not seen since last September (these are 6-month graphs here). So the fact that OIH options hover near the lows is unremarkable. Remember the important thing is how efficiently options price future stock moves not how the prices relate to a time when everything was in full panic mode. What's slighly different about OIH? Well 30-day options look pretty fair versus 10- and 20-day HV. Almost perfectly fair in fact as both sit ...