The World Blog by humble servant.

Market Outlook: The technical condition of the market was little changed this week but remained positive. The major averages struggled at key resistance areas but held key support levels during intraday weakness. The technical indicators are in positive ground with several indexes working off overbought conditions after the previous week's spike. The different indexes traded in a narrow range for most of the period with selling well contained as investors bought the dips. The DJIA outperformed and flirted with its August high after breaking above a downward sloping long-term trend line and remains above its 200-day MA. The S&P 500 remains positive but failed to make much progress this week. After failing at its 61.8% retracement of the August-October selloff on Tuesday, the bellwether index bounced off support at its rising 100-day MA on Thursday keeping bullish momentum. The NASDAQ rally stalled at its 100-day MA during the week, and its reversal was held in check by its 50-da...

The total jumped by $351 billion in the third quarter, mostly due to mortgages and credit card usage, the regulator reports US household debt skyrockets – Federal Reserve © Getty Images / South_agency US household debt jumped during the third quarter at its fastest pace in 15 years due to increases in credit card usage and mortgage balances, a Federal Reserve report revealed this week. According to the Fed, total debt hit a record $16.5 trillion, up 2.2% from the previous quarter and 8.3% from a year ago. Households added $351 billion in debt for the July-to-September period, the regulator said. The increase follows a $310 billion leap in the second quarter and represents an annual rise of $1.27 trillion. Debt has surged over the past year due to soaring inflation, rising interest rates and strong consumer demand. The central bank noted that the biggest contributors to the debt load came from mortgage balances, which skyrocketed by $1 trillion from a year ago to $11.7 trillion, and...