ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Stock Market Commentary: The holiday-shortened week brought a reluctant return to overbought trading conditions. Buyers nudged the indices higher inch by inch after Monday’s slightly down open. The Fed-speak that returned the stock market to bearish trading conditions faded out of view. Looking ahead, the promise of seasonal strength once again beckons reluctant buyers. If … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard did his best to dissuade financial markets from optimistic interpretations of recent softish inflation reports. The press release summarizing recent remarks was enough to send chills in the Fed pause/plateau/pivot theorists: “the policy rate is not yet in a zone that may be … Read more
The United States Oil Fund, LP (USO) has declined six straight Mondays and seven of the last eight. Prior to this streak, USO only declined 39% of Mondays in 2022 (where the market was trading on the prior Friday). Overall, the split is essentially 50/50 with 19 Monday blues versus 20 Monday gains. In other … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The latest cryptocurrency scandal and implosion distracted the market (and me) from the upside potential of the October CPI (Consumer Price Index) report. Likely contagion, real and psychological, from crashing crypto prices helped drive distraught trading that created technical breakdowns across the major indices. U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday also apparently failed … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The latest jobs report came on the heels of another post-Fed downer. The U.S. added 261,000 jobs but the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.6% to 3.7%. At the open, the market seemed to celebrate the potential implications for looser monetary policy despite the microscopic change in the unemployment rate. China delivered … Read more