ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Housing Market Intro and Summary The seasonal trade on home builders ended in the middle of one of those critical junctures for these stocks and the housing market in general. Mortgage rates are done coming down for now and could break to new highs as the Federal Reserve continues hiking short-term rates to battle inflation. … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Flying on the wings of an AI (artificial intelligence) gold rush, the NASDAQ may have delivered the swan song for its bear market. The latest rush of buying, sent the NASDAQ above its bear market line for the first time since last August. The path to this breakthrough was fraught with yet … Read more
NVIDIA Races Ahead Money manager Cathie Wood of ARK Invest is known for being unconventional by making concentrated bets on highly speculative companies, what Wood calls betting on innovation that solves problems. So of course Wood has AI-related bets in the various ARK funds. The ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ) in particular holds … Read more
Uptrend in ITB: An Observation of 20-Day and 50-Day Moving Averages The calendar for the seasonal trade in home builders has come to an end. Yet, the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) looks as strong as ever. The uptrend in ITB is well-defined by a primary uptrend in the 20-day moving average (DMA) (the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: What was quiet in the prior week is now loud and clear. Led by the NASDAQ, the stock market is in breakout mode. While market breadth is not quite endorsing the move, key breakouts are showing up in the indices and individual stocks. The inability of sellers to take advantage of bad … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The U.S.’s looming debt ceiling crisis is a manufactured emergency. The whole political wrangling could end in an instant with a very simple decision to keep budget negotiations in the budget process. Thus, the stock market’s relative calm about the political stalemate does not surprise me. Moreover, who are the motivated sellers … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: In the previous week, the stock market put on a display of strength ahead of the Federal Reserve’s May decision on monetary policy. That bravado was temporarily undermined by the final blow to First Republic Bank (FRC). After a one-day pause, presumably to contemplate the implications of the lack of a coherent … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary The fresh hope from a peak in mortgage rates has expanded into an ever stronger spring selling season for the housing market. Despite double digit year-over-year declines keeping existing home sales and housing starts in recessions, new home sales have almost reversed all their losses since the Fed started hiking … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: On a weekly basis, the stock market seems to flip its abiding theme. One week after I accused the stock market of sleepwalking, buyers roused the major indices out of their slumber with a new and sudden display of strength. A 13.9% post-earnings surge from Meta Platforms, Inc (META) seemed to set … Read more
I used the Google Trends Momentum Check (GTMC) for gold as a relatively reliable indicator for trading sentiment on the precious metal until around 2016. After that year, Google trends for the term “gold” essentially flatlined. When gold went parabolic to start 2022, the GTMC for “gold” failed to trigger. The extremes in search interest … Read more