ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
What has changed in the two months it took for silver to stampede its way up $15 (a 43% gain) and back? Did the Federal Reserve raise rates? Did the Federal Reserve threaten the market with rate hikes? Did the housing market rebound sharply, generating an expectation for higher rates? Did inflation expectations adjust sharply? … Read more
With the S&P 500 hitting fresh 3-year highs this week, the index is poised to recapture the previous uptrend that was interrupted by March’s double calamities of the Japan earthquake and hostilities in Libya. The stock market is overbought with T2108, the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs), at a … Read more
Dangerous Views of Volatility: Pay attention to the VIX, but don't just follow the crowd – Barrons.com The market remains schizophrenic. One day, stock prices tumble because Standard & Poor's questions the credit rating of the United States, and investors panic and sell and fret, and the front pages of many newspapers are apocalyptic. The … Read more
It seems the Federal Reserve may maintain some excuse to keep printing money. Hundreds of billions printed in the name of economic recovery and inflation can be seen almost everywhere except the housing market, one of two of the Fed’s main targets – the other being employment. (See “Inflation Watch” for running highlights of stories … Read more
In late February, I lamented that TBT, the Pro Shares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury ETF, was careening toward a retest of the 200-day moving average (DMA) that it would lose. After three more weeks, the anticipated retest finally occurred, and TBT survived. *Chart created using TeleChart: The retest of the 200DMA was a great reminder … Read more
Buyers are again lifting the stock market from its intra-day lows and providing some potential clues on where to draw the bull/bear lines from a technical perspective. The case for a bullish setup is relatively strong: Three days of high volume selling is washing out sellers. 50-day moving average (DMA) essentially successfully retested, leaving primary … Read more
While the general stock market just keeps crawling steadily upward, individual stocks continue to produce some very interesting, and very tradable charts. For example, over the past several months, I have been able to identify many valuable breakouts as well as some breakdowns. The three charts in this post are not directly related, but I … Read more
Nassim Taleb, famous author of “Fooled by Randomness” and “The Black Swan”, was so distressed by the Federal Reserve’s roll-out of quantitative easing part 2 that he ended his media black-out and interviewed with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television a few days ago. Anyone familiar with Taleb will not find any new themes or critiques … Read more
For a few months, I have intended to write an update on lithium ion battery company Ener1, Inc. (HEV) since I took exception with an analyst’s dismissal of the company in late July of this year. The stock remained firm since then, and I was thinking it was a bullish sign. HEV reported earnings last … Read more
I was about a month premature and about 19% in missed gains when I flagged the potential start of a parabolic move in silver. Or perhaps my definition of a parabolic move should have been more expansive. Either way, silver’s behavior over the past four trading days definitely has taken on the tipsy look of … Read more