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 Bearish engulfing patterns flag potential tops at the end of uptrends. They represent the potential exhaustion of buying power as price first opens above the previous day’s high and then closes below the previous day’s close. Thus, the latest round of bearish engulfing patterns in major indices and major stocks should be … Read more
Stock Market Commentary October is the third of the stock market’s three most dangerous months. October, 2024 started with a convergence of bad news tailor-made to fulfill October’s seasonal destiny: intensifying war and geo-political tensions, two intense hurricanes, the looming contentiousness of the U.S. presidential election, another failure from the overbought threshold (bearish according to … Read more
Stock Market Commentary In announcing the official end of monetary tightening, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell mentioned some form of the word “recalibration” nine times from his introductory statement to the Q&A portion of the press conference. Specifically, “….it’s a process of recalibrating our policy stance away from where we had it a year ago, … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market poetically swung from the depths of despair with a seasonal September drawdown to a sharp rebound in giddy anticipation of rate cuts from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. The highly anticipated meeting has the potential to set the market’s tone for the remainder of the year. If Chair Jerome … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week started with a calamity and ended with a restless calm. Critical trendlines held as support as buyers and bulls ground their way to a near full reversal of Monday’s loss. Ironically, the market even found relief in a “better than expected” weekly unemployment claims report. Claims fell 17,000 from the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A plunge in market breadth on Wednesday made me expect a more bearish take on the markets for my next blog post. A sharp rebound led by strong earnings from various retail companies, quickly changed the narrative from a continued NVDA hangover to a bullish divergence and then a bullish setup. Friday’s … Read more
When Jim Cramer gets exorcised about something, I sit up and pay attention. As a student of market extremes, Cramer’s extremes offer their own special trading signals. At the onset of the pandemic, I wrote about “Cramer in turmoil” as a demonstration of how quickly financial narratives can change in response to market extremes, revealing … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week was an intense week of trading. The ever-escalating conflict in the Middle East disturbed markets. However, the initial negative reaction in futures market was mostly erased by the time of the market open on Thursday. The indices even managed to gain ground before getting faded. Thus, the market still fundamentally … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A curious break in the trading action unfolded as financial markets wrestled with two “disappointing” inflation reports. Both the CPI (consumer price index) and wholesale inflation (the producer price index or PPI) came in slightly higher than “expected” (headline and core). The data just tell me expectations are unrealistic or at best … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week repeated a familiar story. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ closed up for the week. Since the October lows, each index has only suffered one down week. The iShares Russell 2000 ETF was part of the party until the calendar flipped to 2024. The ETF of small caps lost altitude … Read more