Expert opinion

On Tuesday 21 November at 6.30pm, a very special event will take place at the Gabbani restaurant in Lugano: IG Italy’s very own trading expert Alberto Bettineschi will hold a presentation on the advanced charting package ProRealTime.

The session is open to anyone who is interested in improving their trading skills, but a basic knowledge of ProRealTime would be beneficial. You’ll learn how to set up a workspace, trade directly from charts, and create an automatic trading system to trade on your behalf.

Markets have largely shrugged off events in Catalonia. They are probably correct to do so.

After all, Catalonia is unlikely to become independent, at least for the foreseeable future. There does not appear to be a majority in the region in favour of independence (although that could change). Constitutionally, Spain is a unitary, indivisible state, so there is currently no legal route to independence. And international opposition to independence, at the margin, makes it more difficult.

What is likely to affect the US economic activity in the near term?

I suppose that the US economy is on a fairly solid and steady growth path at the moment. I think that there are no serious policy errors and the economy will continue to show steady performance in the near term. However, possible policy errors would be an upturning protectionist action and probably the ending of the NAFTA, while tax measures would make a positive contribution to the economy. Nevertheless, I do not think the economic impact of the latter would be as strong as some people hope; there would be a moderate support and sustaining recovery rather than a strong boost.

The VIX has recently been recording record lows, and even if it went up to 12.57 on Friday, 10th November 2017, due to jitters caused by the news of a probable delay in a cut in the corporate tax rate, it is still very low historically. The VIX has been taken to indicate the fear of investors regarding trading, and it can also be a measure of complacency.

The yellow metal is continuing to trade against the buck at the intersection of large ascending channel and junior rising wedge formations.

Although the larger pattern managed to constrain the bullish sentiment for now, but the rising 55-, 100- and 200-hour SMAs as well as ongoing concerns over implementation of the US President Donald Trump’s tax plan suggest that such upward movement is going to continue and might actually reach the upper trend-line of another dominant descending channel near the 1,293.00 mark.

On October 9th, Richard H. Thaler, one of the founders of behavioral economics and behavioral finance, was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics for shedding light on how irrational decision making affects the economy and financial markets.

The Mexican economy has essentially been a two-part tale lately: oil and services. The oil sector has been reformed for the better during President Pena Nieto’s term. But the reforms have nevertheless been overwhelmed by the sheer extent of the oil price drop. It is weakening exports, reducing tax revenues and hurting growth to the extent that the sector now accounts for around 4% of GDP, much less than in the past.

October has come and gone, and the market rally goes on and on. Numerous observers and pundits have warned of a crash or strong correction, given the length of the rally and the fundamentals of the economy, which have been noted in earlier Newsletters. The FANGs and Microsoft seem not to be influenced by any disturbing geo-political news. The Fed will probably announce another rate hike in December and possibly three more in 2018 in addition to QT at 10 billion a month.