Weekly Market Recap – November 9th, 2018

In the Markets

The United States’ midterm elections were held on Tuesday, resulting in a split Congress as the Democrats took control of the House, and the Republicans retained control of the Senate. Historically, a split Congress bodes well for U.S. equity markets, and the big three indices responded well on the week, with the Dow Jones climbing 2.8%, the S&P 500 rising 2.1%, and the NASDAQ ending Friday up 0.7%. The Fed released its policy statement on Thursday. While they left the federal funds rate unchanged, indicators seem to point to the planned fourth rate increase in December, as the statement focused on bullish market factors including sustained economic growth and a strong jobs market.

Despite exemptions to sanctions on Iran allowing exempted nations to import Iranian oil, crude futures continued to drop amid oversupply worries and weak demand. WTI futures fell 4.67%, and Brent futures dropped 3.88%, as markets will continue to eye a potential supply cut from Saudi Arabia and OPEC. Heating Oil futures finished the week flat, while Gasoline followed crude falling 5.09%. Natural Gas was again the big winner in energy, shattering even its recent bullish performance, climbing 13.25% on the week.

The World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates were released on Thursday, and soybean futures responded down 0.11%, corn fell 0.4%, and wheat dropped 1.33%.

The USD showed strength this week, as dollar index futures rose 0.41%. The strengthening USD put negative pressure on precious metals, with gold down 2%, and silver dropping 4.17%.

Softs also saw weak performance, with sugar and coffee both falling over 5% on the week. Cocoa and cotton did not fall as significantly, but still fell 0.75% and 0.89% respectively.

World Cup Trading Championships

Petra Ilona Zacek extended her streak to 22 straight trading days atop the leaderboard, approaching a 300% net return as she closed the week at 295% year to date return. Second place shuffled between three traders, eventually being taken by Archie Ma to close Friday, who ended with a net return of 116.6%. Kurt Sakaeda finished in 3rd place after closing the week at a 106.7% net return, having held onto second briefly on Wednesday. Paul Skarp finished right behind him in 4th place with a net return of 99.7%. Jan Smolen returned to the top 5, closing in the final spot of the leaderboard with a net return of 61.2%.

Trading futures and forex involves significant risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. World Cup Championship (WCC ) accounts do not necessarily represent all the trading accounts controlled by a given competitor. WCC competitors may control accounts that produce results substantially different than the results achieved in their WCC accounts. WCC entrants may trade more than one account in the competition.