Does A Worse than Average S&P 500 In August Mean September Will Also Suffer?

trouble abounds (Credit: Sad Dog by Ink Hog, https://www.flickr.com/photos/34191996@N07/3859862007)

The simple answer is yes! The data show that a worse than average August for the S&P 500 (SPY) increases the likelihood of a worse than average September. I use average to mean the average maximum drawdown as calculated and analyzed in “How to Trade During the Stock Market’s Most Dangerous Months“. In this case, … Read more

Speculating On Innovation ETFs Versus Big Cap Tech: ARKK vs IPO vs QQQ

speculate (Credit: Booby Stare-Down by Scott Ableman on Flickr)

This year has been a surprisingly good year for speculating. The race to the end of 2023 looked like it priced in a lot of good news, but the good news (in price action) continues apace year-to-date. Thus, I decided to take a fresh look at last year’s claim: “Renaissance IPO ETF A Less Volatile … Read more

How to Use ChatGPT to Test Theories on Stock Prices

Percentage of days IWM experiences a gain based on the combined performance of QQQ and IWM (February 12, 2019 to February 8, 2024)

I have a good friend that comes up with interesting theories about relationships in the stock market. Recently, he claimed that “more often than not”, on a day where the big cap stocks gain and the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) does not gain, IWM will experience a daily gain on the next trading day. … Read more

How A Bear Finds A Sector Full of Ugly Stocks – The Market Breadth

ugly stocks (Credit: "Jenn's Ugly Face" by lorenabuena is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/2.0/jp/?ref=openverse.)

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

How to Change from FOMO to No Regrets in the Stock Market

no regrets (Credit: Relaxing on the Beach by evanforester on Flickr)

(An audio version of this blog post is available on SoundCloud) A no regrets decision is a high quality decision. When backed by a systematic framework, preferably something like the decision chain which I use in my consulting practice, a decisionmaker has reasonably and practically exhausted all available options to improve the inputs to the … Read more