After listening to evidence on 10,000 complaints for a year, the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry in Australia, the results are damning. The Financial Times today says the report excoriates the behaviour of financial institutions, their boards and executives for putting profits above customers. State Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said, ‘’the price paid by our community has been immense and goes beyond just the financial. Businesses have been broken, and the emotional stress and personal pain have broken lives’’. All 76 recommendations will be acted on by the government.
The Chinese Spring Festival starts tomorrow, the one we in the West usually call the Chinese New Year, and carries on for a fortnight. On the mainland, where this is the most important holiday in the calendar, it causes the biggest mass migration in the world as workers in cities travel to see their relatives in the countryside.
DAX 30
A second consecutive weekly hanging man-style candle and momentum still bearish. Sunday’s Bild Am Sonntag newspaper reported that German finance minister Olaf Scholz estimates that by 2023 the country will be running a €25 billion deficit as tax revenues fall. From a surplus of €11.2 billion last year, the warning comes ahead of budget negotiations which start soon.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Small short at 11180; stop above 11400. First target 10600.
POSITION TAKER: Square.
FTSE 100
Last week’s bullish engulfing candle at month-end is not what we had expected at all. Bearish momentum has vanished and we continue to hold above the bottom edge of the massive broadening top pattern.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Stopped out of my short position for a small loss.
POSITION TAKER: Short at 6895; stop above 7045. First target 6600, and then probably an awful lot more.
S&P 500
Extraordinary how, after retracing a Fibonacci 61 per cent of Q4 2018’s slump, momentum is still bearish.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Short at 2666; stop well above 2700. First target 2450.
POSITION TAKER: Square.
BRITISH POUND/US DOLLAR
Momentum has turned marginally bullish as we probe the top of what might be a broadening base.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Square.
POSITION TAKER: Long at 1.2860; stop below 1.3000. New target 1.3400.
EURO/US DOLLAR
Utterly grim little currency pair.
SHORT TERM TRADER: Square.
POSITION TAKER: Square.
GOLD
Overbought and back close to a wide band in which we’ve failed several times before. Reuters reports that the US Pentagon is sending another 3750 US forces to the Mexican border for 3 months to support border agents. President Trump also seems determined to carry out regime change in Venezuela, so he’ll be busy in Latin America.
SHORT TERM TRADER: New small short at 1317; stop above 1330. Target 1240.
POSITION TAKER: Square.
