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(The contents of this blog do not constitute advice and should not be regarded as a recommendation to buy, sell or otherwise deal with any particular investment. Click here for more detailed disclosures and disclaimers).

One-Twenty Two by Dr. Duru: A Market Insight Partner On Your Way to Financial Empowerment

Are you ready to take control of your financial future and navigate the world of finance with confidence? Do you want to understand how markets work and make informed decisions, whether you are focused on long-term wealth building or exploring shorter-term opportunities? Welcome to One-Twenty Two, your accessible resource for demystifying financial markets and achieving financial empowerment.

I built One-Twenty Two on the belief that everyone should have financial knowledge and conventional financial media were falling short. I am committed to providing clear, practical insights that empower individuals and communities to build stronger financial futures. Whether you are a student just beginning your financial journey, a long-term investor seeking to grow your wealth, or someone interested in understanding market dynamics, this blog offers valuable perspectives and tools to support your goals. Consider this site your partner in navigating the financial landscape – you do not need to be a Wall Street insider to understand the strategies, identify the trends, and learn the essential lessons.

Here’s what you’ll gain from One-Twenty Two (for free!):

• Accessible Market Insights: Gain clear and practical analysis of major market indices like the S&P 500 (SPY). These indices sometimes fail to represent the real economy, but they are important nonetheless as reflections of the performance of leading companies and overall market sentiment. Understanding them provides crucial context for your financial decisions and helps you gauge the broader investment climate. I break down complex market information into understandable insights, giving you a solid foundation for informed action.
• Unlock Market Cycles with Market Breadth: Go beyond surface-level market analysis and explore AT50, my customized market breadth methodology. This unique tool is designed to help you understand stock market cycles by tracking the participation of stocks in market trends. Discover how AT50 can empower you to:
  • Identify potential market turning points: Recognize when markets might be reaching unsustainable levels, enabling more strategic planning.
  • Improve your investment timing: Develop a deeper understanding of market momentum to inform your decisions about when to enter or exit positions.
  • Manage market emotions: Make more grounded, less reactive decisions, reducing the influence of fear during market declines and excessive optimism during market surges.
  • Build Generational Wealth: Learn strategies to build long-term financial security and create lasting wealth for yourself and your family.
• Decoding the Housing Market: The housing market critically impacts both your personal finances and the broader economy – and it is a sector I analyze with close attention at One-Twenty Two because the housing sector can affect everyone: buyers, sellers, owners, and renters. I go beyond surface-level reporting to provide you with insightful analysis, recognizing that a healthy housing market is foundational to a healthy economy. Are fluctuating home values impacting your selling or investment strategies? Are interest rate shifts creating new challenges or opportunities for buyers and investors alike? Is the availability of housing influencing rental costs and community stability? I delve into these interconnected questions, examining key data, trends, and incorporating insights directly from home builders to offer a comprehensive understanding of these dynamics.
  • So, whether you are a seller considering your next move, an investor assessing market risks and rewards, a buyer navigating affordability, or a renter concerned about housing costs, my housing market coverage delivers valuable knowledge and perspective for you. Join me as we move beyond the headlines to gain a deeper, more informed view of this essential market and its crucial role in our collective financial well-being.

Your Financial Journey, Supported:

So are you ready to enhance your financial knowledge and build confidence in your financial decisions? Start exploring One-Twenty Two today. This blog is designed as a perfect partner to existing resources in your toolkit – whether you’re reading financial news, taking courses, or working with a financial advisor. I offer a unique perspective and practical tools to complement your existing financial education.

• Browse by Category: Easily find articles focused on the specific financial areas that matter most to you.
• Explore the Archives: Access a rich history of market analysis and insights going back to 2009. Gain valuable historical context and see how market dynamics have unfolded over time.

One-Twenty Two is your resource for building financial literacy, fostering confidence, and pursuing your financial goals. Join this community of empowered learners and take meaningful steps towards a stronger financial future.

Subscribe!

I provide my content completely free. You can subscribe to get the latest content in your email as I publish it. You can also subscribe to a digest (summary) of all the financial market, business, economics, and data analytics content that I publish across the web, what I call Dr. Duru’s FinWeb.

Dr. Duru’s FinWeb includes this blog (One-Twenty Two); Seeking Alpha where I write in depth about the business fundamentals of specific companies; Inflation Watch where I monitor indicators and drivers of inflation; Ahan Analytics where I write about data analytics for my consulting practice; and YouTube where I present compelling visualizations of financial markets, trading, and economics.

While I invite readers to consider my ideas as they implement their own trading and investing objectives, tactics, and strategies, note well that my content is only for educational purposes. I love using my site as my own personal journal of thoughts. I frequently refer back to my past words for focus and discipline. The content is too vast to follow-up on every idea, but I do my best. Review my disclaimer for additional details.

The trend is your friend until it ends. The extreme is your team once it runs out of steam.

Introduction to Dr. Duru

I have blogged about financial markets since the year 2000. A veteran of the dot-com bubble and bust, the financial crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic, I fully appreciate the value in trading and investing around the extremes of market behavior. In this spirit, “One-Twenty Two” delivers a different narrative for students and fans of financial markets. I challenge conventional market wisdoms and offer unique perspectives. The blog posts cover stocks, options, currencies, Bitcoin, and more, while leveraging the tools of both technical and fundamental analysis for short-term and long-term trading and investing. I write and post across the web to cover stock markets, currency markets, economics, and an analytic perspective on market behaviors.

My Passion and What Motives Me

The dot-com bust caught me completely off-guard. In the preceding 1990s I did well for myself investing in mutual funds with the occasional rotations. That success did not prepare me for the discipline and rigor required to trade and invest in individual stocks. I will never forget the first time I lost substantial money because a company reported “disappointing” earnings; I had no idea publicly traded companies had to regularly reveal financials! From there, I watched the edifice of tech investing collapse and sought to warn everyone I knew about the hard lessons I learned.

I fired off periodic emails to everyone in my contacts. After receiving little response, I realized I had a passion for these markets that surpassed the average person. So I decided to write a blog (using html code!), and I called it “One-Twenty.” At the time, I had a fascination with 20-dollar bills. So to me earning one twenty sounded like building the foundation of success. In 2009 I moved the site to WordPress and called it “One-Twenty Two”, as in version two.

I have the same passion today as I had in 2000 for educating people about the financial markets beyond the standard fare from conventional media. While social media opened the floodgates of opinion and observations about financial markets, I find that I still offer unique perspectives not available elsewhere.

My Background

I received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (and an honors degree in Values, Technology, Science and Society – now the Program in Science, Technology & Society) from Stanford University. For graduate studies, I went on to earn a Ph.D. in Engineering-Economic Systems (now Management Science and Engineering) at Stanford University. My work experiences include:

• Data Analytics, including Data Science and some Data Engineering
• Consulting in operations research, decision analysis, and data analysis
• Price optimization (including a shared patent for methodology: Method and System for Producing Optimized Prices for Products for Sale)
• Management consulting in product development and technology strategy
• Building algorithms for Expert Systems

I also enjoy volunteering in my local community and providing leadership and guidance for family and friends. I am currently VP of Development for a new “start-up” mental health non-profit called Rising Opportunities through Science, Education and Service (ROSES); we would love to get your support!

Through my company Ahan Analytics, LLC, I accept data analysis projects for small companies and non-profits.

Finally, you can find me posting on twitter and stocktwits. You can also contact me directly by email. I encourage you to subscribe for free email updates.