National Futures and Financial Weekly

Financial Commentary

Copyright 1997 by Consensus, Inc.
October 31, 1997 * * 1737 McGee, Kansas City, Mo. 64108 U.S.A. * * Full Edition

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  • THE ALLENDALE ADVISORY REPORT
    Prepared by Allendale, Inc.
    *Commodity Wrap-Up For October 24, 1997
    Futures remained firm most of the week on anticipation that China would buy U.S. corn, wheat, and bean products. By Thursday, a crash in the Hong Kong stock market “shook” the grains. Then Friday, a stock recovery combined with a huge snow storm, China's decision to buy 700k of U.S. wheat and option expiration renewed market strength. For the week, December corn closed up +7.75, November beans up +7.0, and December wheat up 5.75 cents.

  • ASTRO-TREND
    October 24, 1997 Prepared by Norman Winski
    *Stocks, T-Bonds, U.S. Dollar, Copper, Cattle, Cotton, Oats, Coffee

  • SPRING OUTLOOK
    October 30, 1997 Prepared by Atlas Forecasts
    *U.S. Crops In 1998
    Southern Hemisphere Soybeans
    South Africa Corn
    Australian Wheat
    El Nino To End In The Spring
    Cocoa

  • COMMODITY FUTURES FORECAST WEEKLY REPORT
    October 30, 1997 Prepared by Commodity Futures Forecast
    *Yo-Yo!, Liquidity Key, Metals

  • THE OPTION ADVISOR
    October 23, 1997 Investment Research Institute, Inc.
    Shades of 1994? As long-time readers of these market commentaries may recall, I was screaming during the fourth quarter of 1994 that we were experiencing a buying opportunity of historic proportions, due, in part to what I viewed as the market's obsession with irrelevant external events.

  • COMMITMENT OF TRADERS ANALYSIS-CURRENCY CONTRACTS
    October 29, 1997 Prepared by Jack McIntyre
    Latest MCM TradeWatch COT data analysis, a review of currency futures positions as of Tuesday, October 21st, shows that coming into this week, large traders (hedge fund types who have no exposure to the cash FX markets) have maintained a bearish posture on the major currency contracts. In fact, this group had a net short position in the yen, D-mark, British Pound, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar.

  • MYERS ON FUTURES
    October 31, 1997 Prepared by Steven R. Myers
    *Why Bonds? Here's Why
    Downtrending S&P = Recession
    Bad Stocks = Good Commodities
    Trade For November . . . Up In Hogs!

  • NIKKO MARKET COMMENTS #1
    The Nikko Securities Co. International, Inc.
    The Hong Kong Gong Show
    Hong Kong rang the gong on the world's financial markets this week, putting them into a violent one-day tailspin. On Thursday, the end of the financial world seemed to be at hand. By Friday, Hong Kong had recovered much of its misstep. many of the world's equity markets were willing to forgive, but even more ready to forget. In New York, on Friday the stock market still obsessed over the events of Thursday.

  • NIKKO MARKET COMMENTS #2
    October , 1997 Prepared by The Nikko Securities Co. International, Inc.
    Jobless claims fell to a 297,000 pace in the October 25 week, unwinding last week's bulge and bringing the 4-week moving average back down to 305,000. The number of benefit recipients fell by 48,000, as the insured unemployment rate remains stuck at a low 1.9%.

  • SORTING IT ALL OUT
    October 30, 1997 Prepared by The Northern Trust Company
    Q. What touched off the sharp decline in the Hong Kong stock market?
    A. Fed Chairman Greenspan's comments to the House Budget Committee on October 8, in which he intimated that the Fed might raise short-term U.S. rates in the not-too- distant future might have had something to do with it. In reaction to these comments, our debt markets sold off.

  • INTEREST RATE WATCH
    October 24, 1997 Prepared by R.J. O'Brien & Associates, Inc.
    October 24, 1997
    Things were getting a little boring for the first half of the week, but then on Thursday, the shock wave from Asia hit full force, sending the U.S. stock market reeling and the long bond soaring. Everyone was talking of a rush to value and safety, but if so, why bonds? Traditionally, investors fearing for their financial health seek out three-month Treasury bills for their safe haven, but this time the longer maturities were the preferred investment vehicle.

  • FINANCING AND THE “NEW” CANADA
    October 22, 1997 Prepared by Technical Data
    In order to improve the functioning of the Government of Canada bond market, the Bank of Canada and the Ministry of Finance are engineering efforts to revamp the debt auction process. While existing arrangements have satisfied past needs, the new era of balanced budgets has a significant effect on market liquidity.

  • U.S. TREASURY BOND TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
    October 22, 1997 Prepared by Technical Data
    Bonds came under new pressures in October as an attempt to break out of the range failed. The approximate 6.30%-6.80% zone that had been held from July through September was briefly broken below before the fragile psychology of the market was revealed on October 3.

  • ITALY: WILL MARKET OPTIMISM BE REWARDED
    October 22, 1997 Prepared by Technical Data
    Just when the so called “Club Med” appeared to be firmly on course for the Holy Grail that is EMU, one of it's members attempts political self-destruction and succeeds.
    Interestingly and amazingly enough, financial markets did not pull the trigger on Italy. After a bizarre first week of October, this one element which had the power to blow Italy's EMU ambitions apart did not materialize.

  • SEEING THROUGH THE ILLUSIONS IN STRUCTURED FINANCE
    October 22, 1997 Prepared by Technical Data
    An old adage in the world of derivatives and structured finance asserts that markets drive products. This notion applies to analysis of structured financings for U.S. agencies, such as Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) and other similar institutions, because it provides insight regarding investor expectations for interest rate trends, changes in the slope of the yield curve, interest rate volatility and credit tiring between alternative classes of borrowers in the market.

  • EL NINO OUTLOOK
    October 29, 1997 Prepared by The Hightower Report
    The current El Nino is strengthening and threatening to exceed the strength and intensity of the 1982-83 episode, the strongest of the century. El Nino's occur approximately every 2-7 years and commodity traders are sometimes misled by the impact of these episodes on crop and weather conditions around the world by not considering the intensity, or lack of intensity of each episode. The 1982-83 occurrence was the strongest of the century.

  • THE REAPER MARKET COMMENTS
    October 23, 1997 Prepared by R.E. McMaster, Jr.
    General Market Comments
    On October 23, the currency and stock market chaos in Asia finally hit the U.S. stock market. It was only a matter of time. These international currency and stock markets are interrelated by an inevitable flow of funds.

  • WEEKLY OUTLOOK
    October 27, 1997 Prepared at University of Illinois
    Is The Corn Market For Real?
    In our newsletter of May 27, we pondered the question of whether new-crop corn prices were too low too early, concluding that prices had declined enough to fully reflect a very large crop. However, prices declined another $.25 per bushel by early July before a bottom was found.

  • YOU SHOULD BE FULLY INVESTED FOR THE NOVEMBER-DECEMBER-JANUARY RALLY
    November 1997 Prepared by The Wall Street Digest, Inc.
    Between now and year-end we expect the Dow Jones Industrial Average to reach a new high above 8300. However, you'll capture greater profits with the rapidly growing small cap stocks on our recommended list. The Dow Industrial Average has been in a trading range since August, while the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 indices continue to set new highs virtually every day.

    Copyright 1997, by Consensus Inc.  All American and Pan American rights Reserved. editor@consensus-inc.com

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