Market Update 14 March 2014

This week the markets were almost all lower, with Japanese stocks, copper and crude oil seeing the largest declines. The only rising market was gold stocks, which managed a 2.7% gain.

Checking the charts, conventional equities are now heading into bear market territory, with the Dow and Nikkei closing the week solidly below their 200 day moving averages, while the S&P 500 bounces around right at its 200 dma.

Long bonds are trading at the lower margin of their up-trending channel – there may be a low risk speculation buying them here; if they stay true to form and bounce higher, the profits could be excellent,  but if they start to fall, make a hasty exit.

Gold stocks have been trading above their 200 day average for about a month now, and have tested it as support several times. They are starting to look very attractive as a speculation. Once they close above 6.5 grams, and retest that level as support, I will consider them to be in a bull market.

Bitcoin is trading sideways, performing a bit worse than the USD and EUR, but a bit better than the CAD for the week. Trading volumes have been falling the last two weeks and are now very light; I expect volatility to increase when that trend reverses.