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 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: I started last week’s trading with a call for discipline over precision. That post turned out to be timely as the bears and bulls took the stock market on a wild ride through the Fed’s latest monetary policy decision (more on that in a future post). The indices plunged deeply on Monday … 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
Stock Market Commentary The stock market survived a choppy week. The churn almost looked like stabilization after a disappointing start to the new year. However, the attempt to absorb the news of a hawkish Fed is taking its toll in the form of toppiness. With each passing day I get more and more wary about … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market indices benefited from a strong 2021. year. However, under the surface, declining market breadth betrayed the bullish narrative for a wide swath of stocks. A disappointing start to the new year for the indices was even worse for those stocks already limping into the end of last year. The … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market indices enjoyed an impressive year. However, weak and declining market breadth produced numerous exceptions to the strong performance of indices and ETFs. A number of important and well-known individual stocks corrected, collapsed, and crashed in 2021. For some, the tailwinds of the pandemic ran out. For others, investors tired … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The rebound from oversold conditions leading into Christmas provided just enough fuel for a one day Santa Claus rally. After the week started with a rush for Santa, the excitement fizzled like kids opening their last Christmas gifts. Still, the rally was enough and ended 2021 on a strong note. The S&P … Read more
Stock Market Commentary It was a close call. The technical deterioration of the previous week put the Santa rally in peril. At the start of trading last week, the Grinch roasted Santa enough to ignite oversold trading conditions. Santa’s revenge came in the form of a sharp rebound out of the 1-day oversold period. Subsequently, … Read more
Stock Market Commentary According to Investopedia, the Santa Claus rally “describes a sustained increase in the stock market that occurs in the last week of December through the first two trading days in January.” With the legendary rally still a week away, the S&P 500 (SPY) finds itself priced exactly where it was at the end … Read more