Dollar Clings to (Life)Support, Pound Maintains Upward Trend

Ahead of last week’s big events, I suggested that the market was setting up for a surprise reaction. So far, the biggest surprise has been the timing of the market’s big rally reaction after the election and the Federal Reserve’s announcement of quantitative easing and before the unemployment report. But that is not the surprise … Read more

Intel Maintains Its Trading Advantage Over Microsoft

Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT) have been tech laggards for some time now. However, over the past week, both stocks finally breached the all-important 200-day moving average (DMA) line of resistance (charts at the end of this piece). While MSFT is struggling to add to its small post-earnings gains, INTC has completely reversed the post-earnings … Read more

The Market Remains Unbroken…and Unloved

Like my friend TraderMike, I am extremely surprised at the timing of the market’s latest breakout. I too would have thought a breakout would come immediately after one of our three main news items of the week, not in between! I agree with TraderMike that the nature of this breakout leaves open the real possibility … Read more

Fed’s QE Plans Send TBT Surging on Record One-Day Volume

The Federal Reserve announced its plans to drive quantitative easing (QE) part 2 by maintaining the reinvestment of “…principal payments from its securities holdings purchasing…[and purchasing] a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month.” The New York Fed … Read more

Germany and Margin Issues Pressure First Solar, Overall Business Remains Healthy

While many gear up for the elections and the Federal Reserve, I am bracing myself for a barrage of earnings from solar companies. Thursday night, First Solar (FSLR) kicked off the earnings parade in disappointing fashion as the market reacted by taking the stock down 9%. It seems that the market agonized over two main … Read more