ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
A friend of mine, who is clearly an avid reader of all things financial, has recently showered me with commentary stemming from the SEC’s January request for comment on equity market structure. Starting on page 45 of this 74-page release, the SEC describes various issues surrounding High-Frequency Trading (HFT) and poses a comprehensive set of … Read more
On Friday, CNBC’s Fast Money asked the question “Has Goldman Bottomed Out?” The answer to these kinds of questions is always a “maybe” or a more resolute “perhaps/perhaps not” but I was a bit amused at the reasoning provided for guessing that Goldman Sachs (GS) has reached a bottom: It acted well on Wednesday by … Read more
The most striking characteristic of May’s selling has been the precision of the S&P 500 as it has bounced around key technical levels of support and resistance. On these pages, I have chronicled almost each important step and juncture in this sell-off, and I continue to marvel at how well trades have fared that stay … Read more
For 14 months the S&P 500 has trended upward from the March lows. However, with the S&P 500 now down 3.9% for the year, the last 8 of these 14 months have produced no net gain in the index. Another 3% drop will produce the first lower low on the index since July, 2009. The … Read more
Last week, I claimed that the deeply oversold conditions presented a short-term buying opportunity, but that the downward trend in the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) and 200DMAs (T2108 and T2107) pointed to a steadily weakening market in the near future. I expected sellers to step up at the … Read more
I posted a note before noon on Thursday outlining the latest technicals that seemed to point toward a lower stock market. Almost as soon as I sent it, I wished I had waited…mainly because T2108, the percentage of stocks trading above their 40-day moving averages, started declining at an even faster rate. By the close … Read more
CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo conducted a great interview with Duncan Niederauer, NYSE Euronext CEO. Niederauer described the technical aspects behind the market crash on Thursday. While he may have been too frank in forecasting “I think it will be pretty ugly tomorrow morning,” his openness gave a revealing look at the technical vulnerabilities of today’s modern … Read more
Earlier this week, I suggested setting up a pairs trade between Goldman Sachs (GS) and Deutsche Bank Ag (DB) to take advantage of an apparent growing divergence in performance between the two financial giants. My main recommendation rested on a put spread for GS and a call spread for DB. After thinking about the structure … Read more
Ever since moving this site to a more standard blog format last September, I have been able to write more articles, more consistently. In that time, I hope I have delivered some value to those listening out there in the blogosphere. Now, it is time for a partial hiatus as I attend to personal and … Read more
Although the S&P 500 almost touched its high for the year on its eighth up day out of the last nine trading days, the VIX (the volatility index) increased almost 4%. So, as the S&P 500 scrapes at fresh 18-month highs, the VIX is bouncing from 21-month lows. The chart below shows the current action … Read more