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: Social unrest from fresh COVID lockdowns in China are already a distant memory for the U.S. stock market. Just as quickly as the stock market bearishly failed once again to hold overbought trading conditions, market breadth flipped the script to surge and rush back to overbought. Buyers and bulls celebrated a speech … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The people of China have now suffered three years of various draconian lockdowns meant to contain the spread of COVID-19. The latest lockdowns remind a suffering populace that there remains no end in sight for this extended kind of public health authoritarianism. Apparently, the frustrations are boiling over enough to motivate people … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: A month ago, a CPI Shocker brought a bear market rally to an abrupt end and created an historically bad September. Today’s CPI Shocker, another inflation reading that came in hotter than expected (imagine that), generated a completely different, and bullish, response. The stock market gapped down at the open and buyers … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Extreme trading behavior finally appeared right after I insisted the stock market looked uninteresting despite dropping into oversold conditions. Oversold conditions did a stretch toward the year’s lows and created enough concern to finally send the volatility index soaring. Looming over the trading action all day was a collapse in the British … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Sellers followed through with yesterday’s post-Fed selling. With losses across the board, market breadth dropped into oversold trading conditions. Yet, as I explained could be the case, the stock market looks uninteresting. Because the major indices are fresh off important breakdowns, substantial downside risk remains. Because the volatility index actually closed down … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Pricing pressures are apparently NOT easing just yet. The August CPI report turned “peak Fed” into “fear the Fed” all over again. Instead of falling, core inflation (CPI excluding food and energy) increased a whopping 0.6% month-over-month. This surge pushed the 12-month core inflation rate up from July’s 5.9% to August’s 6.3%. … Read more
Checking the Google Trends Momentum Check The Google Trends Momentum Check (GTMC) continues to perform well as a signal for a bottom in downward price action for Bitcoin (BTC/USD). Even the brutal crypto winter has delivered two more examples of how this indicator works. As a reminder, the GTMC signals a potential bottom when (worldwide) … Read more
The landscape of inflation and monetary policy continues to change fast. The June inflation numbers disappointed expectations once again for peak inflation. A surprise 1% point rate hike by the Bank of Canada combined with this hot inflation accelerated the timeline for peak interest rates from the Federal Reserve. Instead of a 75 basis point … Read more
At the time of typing, a steep sell-off continues in Bitcoin (BTC/USD) and Ethereum (ETH/USD). Typically, I would jump in and accumulate some more of either or both cryptocurrencies. However, after I took a step back to review the charts, I realized Bitcoin and Ethereum are in precarious positions with support melting away. Both cryptocurrencies … Read more
Bitcoin Boring Bitcoin (BTC/USD) was pretty boring until this past weekend. After neatly failing at resistance from its 200-day moving average (DMA) in late March, BTC/USD settled back into what was starting to look like an extended trading range. However, the pressures of the bear market and a soaring U.S. dollar (DXY) proved too much … Read more