ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
I was clearly far too early in restarting a pairs trade short Microsoft (MSFT) and long Intel (INTC). Over the past two months, the performance of MSFT has steadily improved, while Intel’s performance has steadily worsened. The MSFT/INTC ratio is now at 10 month highs. Source: stockcharts.com Typically, I would look at this divergence and … Read more
The shorts in Cisco (CSCO) had it right after all…even if they were a bit early. Short interest in CSCO surged in late August close to 52-week highs. When I noticed this in mid-September, I made a somewhat complicated case for using this as a contrarian signal to go long the stock. CSCO trickled upward … Read more
Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT) have been tech laggards for some time now. However, over the past week, both stocks finally breached the all-important 200-day moving average (DMA) line of resistance (charts at the end of this piece). While MSFT is struggling to add to its small post-earnings gains, INTC has completely reversed the post-earnings … Read more
The post-earnings selling in Intel (INTC) has become uncanny in its consistency. Four out of the last six earnings reports have resulted in selling even as INTC’s headline earnings news has generally been OK to good. Three of the four bouts of selling followed immediately after INTC opened its first post-earnings trading day higher. This … Read more
Adobe Systems, Inc. (ADBE) surged as high as 17% today after news leaked about a private meeting between ADBE and Microsoft (MSFT) company executives. The most salient rumor surrounding this meeting is that MSFT is considering acquiring ADBE in addition to other strategic options for going after Apple’s (AAPL) dominance in the mobile device market. … Read more
Ever since my friend “Mr. Bull” gave me a ribbing over writing a bearish piece on Intel (INTC) the day before a strong one-day rally, we have used Intel as a metaphor for whether the bulls or the bears are in control of the market. For the five weeks since then, INTC has gone nearly … Read more
On January 28, QUALCOMM (QCOM) disappointed the market by guiding earnings and revenue expectations down for its fiscal second quarter (pro forma EPS of $0.49-0.53 vs. $0.57 consensus and $2.4-2.6B in revenue vs. $2.75B consensus). The stock closed down 14% on the day on over 6x the 3-month average volume. This surge of selling represented … Read more
The excitement over Intel’s Q3 earnings report has already worn off. After peaking as high as $21.60 or so in the immediate aftermath of the release (after hours trading), Intel (INTC) dropped as low as $20 today. While this is just a small amount below the pre-earnings close of $20.49, this drop has still created … Read more
Intel (INTC) delivered a stellar earnings report Tuesday evening with revenues and margins that beat expectations. However, do not expect an encore in the near-term because INTC’s historical performance suggests this may be as good as it gets for a while. Q3 revenues were $9.4B with consensus expectations for $9.04B. The 17% sequential growth in … Read more