ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Looks like the days of buying EWZ after a 20% correction and waiting out the recovery may be coming to an end for now. Last week, the Brazil Index Fund ETF, EWZ, broke out above a nine-month long downtrend. *Chart created using TeleChart: This is a very bullish development and opens up the prospect of … Read more
Two weeks ago, I first noted an impressive “stealth” rally in some solar stocks like SOL, LDK, and JASO. At the time, First Solar (FSLR) was flat on the year, but it still made the list because this flat performance was out-performing the general market. I also noted that FSLR was due for a pullback … Read more
For the two weeks ending August 31, short interest in Cisco (CSCO) surged 26% to 52.4 million shares (only 0.7% of float). This is close to the current 52-week high set on March 15. Over the past year, there were only two other periods that matched this recent surge in percentage terms: short interest increased … Read more
Ever since my friend “Mr. Bull” gave me a ribbing over writing a bearish piece on Intel (INTC) the day before a strong one-day rally, we have used Intel as a metaphor for whether the bulls or the bears are in control of the market. For the five weeks since then, INTC has gone nearly … Read more
Earlier today, the Bank of England (BoE) maintained interest rates at 0.50% and did not change the size of its quantitative program… and the market essentially yawned. Such sluggish behavior has characterized the British pound’s behavior against the U.S. dollar for almost three weeks now. Source: dailyfx.com charts (Click for larger view) The over-extension of … Read more
While we await another challenge of the June highs by the S&P 500, copper has quickly recovered almost all its losses from the sell-off that began in May. Copper is potentially heading for fresh post-crash highs. Source: stockcharts.com Of course, copper is now much more important to the emerging and developing markets than to developed … Read more
I wrote earlier about a “stealth” rally in solar stocks featuring ReneSola (SOL), Solarfun Power Holdings Co Ltd (SOLF), LDK Solar Co Ltd (LDK), Trina Solar Ltd (TSL), and First Solar (FSLR). In all the excitement, I managed to neglected (at least?) two other stocks publicly traded in the U.S. that are in the green … Read more
I tried to make the case on Monday that the shrill commentary about the struggling American economy and its tepid stock market were getting overwrought with the kind of fever only a contrarian could love. It turns out there were other sentiment indicators flashing important extremes: “Bullish Sentiment Plummets to Credit Crisis Low“ (CNBC, August … Read more
So much for the dollar being “…poised for additional gains, especially versus the euro.” Instead of slowly grinding higher over its 50-day moving average (DMA), the U.S. dollar index failed its test of this important resistance line. Now another test of the 200DMA is right around the corner. *Chart created using TeleChart: Most of the … Read more
OK, by “stealth” I really mean I have not paid close enough attention to the rallies in several solar stocks. 2010 has been a year of true divergence for solar stocks. Some solar stocks have been in year-to-date rallies and others have been declining all year. The net result is an awful -25% year-to-date performance … Read more