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 last quarter of the year and the third of the stock market’s most dangerous months started off with a swirl of signals. Each of the three major indices exhibited its own behavior. Small cap stocks plunged and uncorked oversold trading conditions. The S&P 500 clung to flatline. The NASDAQ happily shot … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The sentiment shifts following the bounce from oversold conditions swung from bullish and encouraging to tantalizing and disappointing. The stock market has a precarious setup going into a likely October swoon. The prospects for the current oversold bounce to prevent the October swoon hinge on a swirl of technical signs and fundamental … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The Federal Reserve helped unlock the stalemate in pricing action that stalled the bearish divergence tugging the market toward oversold trading conditions. Fed Chair Jerome Powell once again told financial markets the Fed remains as hawkish as ever. Expectations contracted for rate cuts next year, interest rates soared, and stocks plunged. While … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week was a time to avoid staring too hard at the day-to-day pricing action. The major indices were pretty much locked into a stalemate. Two breakouts were followed by two breakdowns. From a wider perspective, a stalemate has effectively been in place since mid-August. Despite my expectations, last month’s Jackson hole … Read more
Small caps were hit particularly hard in today’s follow-through to tech stocks pushing against technical limits. The iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) went from a breakout above its 50-day moving average (DMA) despite a surge in interest rates and oil prices to a sharp 50DMA breakdown along with a further spike in interest rates and … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Jackson Hole did not provide the market moving spark that I expected. Instead, soft economic news delivered the decisive interpretation of future monetary policy required to provide a fresh catalyst for stocks. The bullish spark caught me flat-footed as I was leaning into imminent oversold trading conditions. Fortunately, the sentiment shift was … Read more
Introduction I recorded a quick video to summarize my thoughts on today’s flip from bearish to bullish sentiment thanks to a bad news is good news kind of day. You can watch the video or read the transcript below curated, corrected, and organized by ChatGPT4 and then edited further by me. I am using this … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Stocks stumbled their way through a week fraught with hopes and fears for Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole. With looming oversold conditions, the most significant technical event occurred with a bearish engulfing right under important resistance levels for both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. The relief buying that … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The summer of stocks looks like it is winding down as trading dynamics transition into the stock market’s most dangerous months. The complete reversal of July’s gains on the major indices represents the most ominous sign of the transition. Technology stocks in particular have flipped from rocketships to anchors weighing on the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A week ago, buyers did their best to push against topping stock indices by restarting overbought conditions. That overbought period lasted just 3 days as a Fitch downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt freshly cooled the summer of loving stocks. The resulting selling confirmed topping conditions and greased the skids of the stock … Read more