Weekly Market Recap – December 27th, 2019

As 2019 comes to a close, Robbins Trading Company is excited to announce the 37th annual World Cup Trading Championships. The 2020 competition begins on January 1st, 2020 and runs through December 31st 2020.

In the Markets

Some of the biggest news for US equity markets in the shortened week came on Monday when the Chinese Ministry of Commerce published a list of hundreds of products that will receive reduced tariff rates. The move was seen as an act of good faith in regards to recent progress in trade negotiations between the US and China. On the week, the Dow Jones advanced 0.7%, the S&P 500 climbed 0.6%, and the NASDAQ grew 0.9%.

With two trading days left in 2019, the YTD growth of the S&P 500 nears the decade high set in 2013 at 29.6%, as the YTD through Friday hit 29.2%. The Dow Jones YTD gains closed Friday at 22.8%, while the NASDAQ reached 35.7% YTD growth.

With lulls coming in many of the issues that effected global trade in 2019, including Brexit and Iranian and North Korean sanctions, bolstered by positive developments between the two economic superpowers (US and China), commodities experienced gains across the board. One of the exceptions came in Natural Gas, which fell 7.3% on the week. Crude oil products all experienced gains, however, with WTI crude up 2.12%, Brent futures gaining 3.05%, and gasoline and heating oil up 2.43% and 1.38% respectively.

Precious metals also posted gains on the week. Silver led the pack, up 4.17% on the week, followed by platinum’s 3.86% gain. Palladium finished the week up 2.9%, as gold gained 2.51%. Copper also advanced, albeit at a slower rate, up 0.82%.

Agricultural commodities also finished positive on the week, with the exception of lean hogs, which slipped just 0.13%, and milk futures which posted a 0.31% loss. Soybeans eked out a 0.19% gain, while corn finished up 0.58%, and wheat climbed 2.72%. Sugar finished flat, while coffee ended Friday up 1.38%.

World Cup Trading Championships

As the traders rounded the corner into the final two-day straight-away, Sadanand Kalasabail held onto pole position with a net return of 251.7%. Ryan Alderson finished the week in second place with a net return of 183.1%. Durai Ramasamy finished behind Ryan, closing Friday at a 134.5% net return. Fabien Fischer took fourth place with a net return of 121.1%, and Sebastian Baumgaertel rounded out the top five at a net return of 97.1%.

In the Global Cup, Jan Smolen, who holds the lead in the 2019 Forex event also, finished the week in first place with a net return of 205.3%. Wayne Wan closed the week in second place at a 134.3% net return followed by Maxim Schulz’s 112.6% net return. Stefan Seibert and Archie Ma ended Friday in fourth and fifth place respectively, separated by less than 3%. Stefan’s net return closed at 96.2% while Archie posted a net return of 93.9%.

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. CME Group is the trademark of CME Group, Inc. The Globe logo is a trademark of Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc.