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 Trading with on-going headline risk is difficult for bulls and bears. I find it useful to pick a narrative, pick an anchor, and stay as disciplined as possible. My foundation remains with the principles of trading contrary to extremes. Last week, the market tested the extremes of oversold trading conditions and survived … Read more
Stock Market Commentary I earlier wrote about a promising divergence between anxiety and breadth in the stock market. However, I cannot help rubbernecking the market’s crashes and accidents. They tell dramatic stories about the folly in price action that can come with easy monetary policy and free money. The market goes through cycles of excitement … Read more
Stock Market Commentary My bullishness waned with last week’s manic trading action. I called the resulting patterns choppiness toppiness to reflect a biding sense that the market is churning out some kind of lasting top. Still, under the surface of the churn is a fresh divergence. The stock market is full of digital lows and … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market indices benefited from a strong 2021. year. However, under the surface, declining market breadth betrayed the bullish narrative for a wide swath of stocks. A disappointing start to the new year for the indices was even worse for those stocks already limping into the end of last year. The … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market indices enjoyed an impressive year. However, weak and declining market breadth produced numerous exceptions to the strong performance of indices and ETFs. A number of important and well-known individual stocks corrected, collapsed, and crashed in 2021. For some, the tailwinds of the pandemic ran out. For others, investors tired … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A new COVID-19 variant created a new normal for financial markets. The following stock charts provide snapshots of how the market reacted to this new reality. Pandemic-sensitive stocks reacted sharply with a holiday-shortened trading session creating extra urgency for traders. Some of these quick trigger moves should reverse at least a bit … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Waning market breadth weighed on a broad swatch of stocks last week. I was compelled to let go of some of my worst losing stocks. I feature a few of them in this inaugural Stock Chart Reviews series. My pace of trades will likely slow for the rest of the year unless … Read more
Stock Market Commentary I flipped bearish on the stock market over a week ago because of a significant breakdown in the S&P 500 (SPY). Moreover, the breakdown occurred alongside vulnerable breadth indices and a bottoming volatility index (VIX). As a result, when the index closed lower than the previous week’s low, I braced for follow-through. … Read more
The Follow-Through: Strong Start for Stocks The month of September enjoyed a strong start as last week’s fairy dust from J-Pow continued to work its magic. Short-term market breadth with AT50, the percentage of stocks trading above their 50-day moving averages (DMAs), also continuing higher while leaving behind the longer-term breadth indicator in AT200, the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Pattern trading uses consistent bets on repeated behaviors in financial markets. Over the course of time, pattern trading delivers profits from the diligent application of rules based on standard, technical setups in stock charts. The persistent uptrends and trading ranges in this pandemic stock market have delivered a surprisingly long stretch of … Read more