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: Inflation is everywhere in the global economy, and inflation will hang around for some time to come. The inflation problem is so bad that the Federal Reserve does not think inflation will return to its 2% target for another three years. While economists and pundits debate about how long inflation will last, … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: I did not back my way into an explanation for Wednesday’s post-Fed rally in the stock market, and I will not do so to explain the rest of the market’s impressively relentless comeback. In fact, the rally makes little sense given the prevailing narrative of fears over higher rates – not to … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: When Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine, financial markets took heavy hits. Overnight, I anticipated a drop into oversold trading conditions for the U.S. stock market. Those oversold trading conditions were surprisingly and exceptionally brief. The major indices gapped down well below their lower Bollinger Bands (BB), and I waited … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market is scraping by just above oversold territory. The churn of last week has created a mosaic different trading conditions. The bears are salivating at the all-time lows. The hopefuls like me are finding slivers of opportunity in the breakouts. The stock charts in this review cover some of everything. … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The week’s trading started with intraday extremes to the downside and upside. With such wild swings at work, it is tempting to look backward and conclude that timing bottoms and tops are possible. This reach for precision distracts from the discipline required to navigate through the volatility. Relying on trading and investing … Read more
Stock Market Commentary I earlier wrote about a forlorn stock market writing a love note to the Federal Reserve. This love note comes in the form of a basket of sell-offs. The selling is so broad and so deep that traders could throw a dart and find descriptive stock charts. The examples below are some … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Investor psychology took another hit. A spirited relief rally turned into a dispiriting fade and reversal that had tinges of bear market action. The bear-like fade stretched the stock market closer to oversold trading conditions. All three major indices covered here are now setting multi-month lows. They are also very extended to … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Investor psychology took an important hit this week. During the Goldman Sachs (GS) Q&A period for the Q4 2021 earnings conference call, Chairman and CEO David Solomon dropped an inflation bomb. Solomon claimed that “there is real wage inflation everywhere in the economy, everywhere” (from the Seeking Alpha transcript). Solomon responded to … 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
A correction in financial markets is conventionally defined as a decline of at least 10% from an all-time high. At its lows of the day, the NASDAQ (COMPQX) found itself down 9.3% from the all-time high set almost two months ago. The depths of this decline also marked an important breach: the NASDAQ traded below … Read more