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 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
Identify Parabolic Trading I often warn about the dangers of chasing parabolic trading action in stocks and currencies. Since parabolic trading tends to end with steep price reversals, traders need to know how to identify trouble. A parabolic price run-up is an extreme uptrend. It is usually brief and features frequent, often consecutive, trading days … Read more
Stock Market Commentary News of a new 30-spike protein COVID-19 variant sent financial markets into a tumble. The rapid news flow combined with a shortened, holiday trading day to deliver broad-based and intense selling pressure. As the market absorbs this latest blow, it should become clearer that COVID-19 is a new normal. That is, the … 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 For one day, the stock market suddenly cared about rising inflation numbers. The recovery mode is already underway. After slamming into the wall of inflation, the stock market is now climbing the wall of inflation. On Friday, in its survey of consumers, the University Michigan had the following to say about the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The first trading week of November was action-packed. At the start of the week I looked ahead to monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and the October jobs report as key catalysts. While those events were indeed important, the stock market was treated to an overlay of at least two other important … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A week ago I pointed out the key signs suggesting the bear cycle was likely already ending. Last week, the S&P 500 (SPY) confirmed the end of the bear cycle with fresh all-time highs. Yet, consistent with this year’s theme, market breadth was left behind in catch-up mode. The momentum on both … Read more
Stock Market Commentary I turned bearish on the stock market over two weeks ago. Last week began with confirmation as sellers followed through on a fade from a brief rally. Mid-week, the downward momentum came to a screeching halt as buyers took over most of the trading action. I pointed out the key signs suggesting … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week opened with a gap down amid hand-wringing about the potential for contagion from debt problems in China’s property market. However, the week ended like nothing happened. The major indices even managed marginal gains after the dust settled. As is so often the case, the Federal Reserve, under the comforting words … Read more