ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
On Thursday, the stock market was rallying but Lender Processing Services (LPS) was selling off on high volume. At its lowest point, within an hour of trading, LPS was down 7.5% on heavy volume. The stock recovered the rest of the day to close down 3.5%. It turns out that LPS was mentioned during testimony … Read more
Lender Processing Services (LPS) provides “…mortgage processing services, settlement services, mortgage performance analytics and default solutions.” The company claims that “a majority of the 50 largest U.S. banks” use its services. This business has put LPS right at the epicenter of “foreclosuregate.” On September 30, immediately before the foreclosure scandal engulfed LPS, the stock experienced … Read more
For the past few months, I pestered my youngest brother to write a review of his cogent 2009 analysis of the housing market. In that post, he predicted housing would bottom in April, 2010 and as late as 2013 in a worst case scenario. He has finally produced the follow-up, and I post it below. … Read more
As fears mount that the United States is dipping into a double-dip recession and headed down the road of deflationary Japan, Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke tip-toed, tap-danced, and downright side-stepped these landmines during his testimony to the Senate today. The market still did not like what it heard, sold off nearly the instant the Semiannual … Read more
Many homebuilder stocks, like Toll Brothers (TOL), went parabolic in April. The homebuilder index, XHB, hit 18-month highs at the time. Since flaming out, TOL is down 26%, and the homebuilder’s ETF, XHB, has sunk 23% in two months. This action further confirms the principle that parabolic moves more than likely signal the coming end … Read more