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 market ended the week on a quiet cliffhanger as major indices hovered under critical resistance levels. A defining theme was the muted reaction to major headlines, particularly around trade and stagflation risks. Despite the looming shadow of stagflation – a term not explicitly mentioned but clearly implied in last week’s Fed … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market is right back to levels seen right before the entire tariff trauma and drama unfolded, but does this reversal mean all is well? Confirmation awaits the next breakouts. The April jobs report appeared to provide additional relief to the stock market. The U.S. economy added 177,000 jobs and the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market experienced a hiccup in an otherwise strong post-oversold bounce. The Q1 GDP report revealed a small contraction that surprisingly caught the market off guard. However, this contraction was driven primarily by a surge in imports as businesses rushed to get ahead of anticipated tariffs. I assume a lot of … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week marked an important shift as the stock market experienced overdue relief. Most notably, there were no major headlines causing significant disruptions in financial markets. Instead, the market continued the theme of recovery from the previous week, driven by policymakers pivoting their messaging about the economic chaos triggered by policies and … Read more
Stock Market Commentary We finally got a breather: a calm weekday and a holiday for both the US stock and bond markets. The break felt more relieving than even the tariff pause, a sign of just how tense things have been in the markets. Market breadth was my major headline as twice in the week, … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Reality bites. And right now those bites are clamping down on rotten eggs in the form of a swift repricing of risk. Once high priced eggs are now eggs few shoppers want. Last week’s theme of bring the pain continued in force at this week’s open: more economic uncertainty, more economic fears, … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Two weeks ago I wrote how a “A DeepSeek Dive and A Tariff Toll” created the next shift in the market’s technical outlook. I stepped back from a bullish position on the market as a result. Now, a familiar theme has unfolded with the stock market looking ready to leave its latest … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The dust is settling ever so slightly on the stock market’s post-Fed plunge. The stock market shifted from euphoria to oversold on a day that woke up everyone to a potentially new market reality. I say “potentially” because all year the market has been hit with bearish catalysts and quickly bounced back … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market has a natural law of “physics.” Overly enthusiastic trading, whether up or down, eventually meets an opposite and sometimes equal force. This natural instability of extremes forms a basis of my market breadth trading rules. The enthusiastic post-election surge exhausted buyers enough to create a post-election reversal. Moreover, my … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Bearish engulfing patterns flag potential tops at the end of uptrends. They represent the potential exhaustion of buying power as price first opens above the previous day’s high and then closes below the previous day’s close. Thus, the latest round of bearish engulfing patterns in major indices and major stocks should be … Read more