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 rally out of the stock market’s last oversold period finally suffered its first strike today as a strong open fizzled into some important fades. The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ tapped highs of the year only to fail into marginally negative closes. Most importantly, market breadth perfectly tapped the threshold for … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Downtrends are over. Bullish breakouts abound. Sellers got one chance last week to try to keep the cork in the bottle of the oversold bounce, but they failed. The stock market insisted on pushing right through. With little time to rest, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ ended the week with major … Read more
Stock Market Commentary An October jobs report with some weakening numbers and more downward revisions of prior numbers appeared to reinforce the market’s celebratory conclusion that the Fed is done hiking interest rates. The resulting drop in long-term interest rates helped to support a major reset for the stock market. October’s bearishness has given way … Read more
The bear market intrusion to the oversold period gave way to an explosion of bullish trading action this week. The maximum drawdown of October for the S&P 500 (SPY) was 4.0% well above the average for the month. This extreme move provided the perfect setup for the sharpness of the current oversold bounce. The rubber … Read more
Stock Market Commentary “This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.” This statement from Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), concluded his commentary on the bank’s Q3 earnings report. These words on Friday morning fittingly concluded a sobering week that started with tragedy and war raging in Gaza and … Read more
Stock Market Commentary It was an unfavorable day in the stock market, as I anticipated in “Small Cap Stocks Uncork Oversold Conditions.” The following post is a summarized transcript of a “show and tell” video I posted to talk through the accumulating extremes in this oversold market. I used ChatGPT to help with the clean-up. … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Get used to the sentiment shifts. One day the stock market went oversold and over hard. The next day, an oversold bounce shows signs of life for stocks. In particular a classic bottoming signal came in the form of the “hammer” candlestick. Together, the bounce from oversold territory and the bottoming hammer … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The Federal Reserve helped unlock the stalemate in pricing action that stalled the bearish divergence tugging the market toward oversold trading conditions. Fed Chair Jerome Powell once again told financial markets the Fed remains as hawkish as ever. Expectations contracted for rate cuts next year, interest rates soared, and stocks plunged. While … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week was a time to avoid staring too hard at the day-to-day pricing action. The major indices were pretty much locked into a stalemate. Two breakouts were followed by two breakdowns. From a wider perspective, a stalemate has effectively been in place since mid-August. Despite my expectations, last month’s Jackson hole … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market got a case of the uglies last week. The end of summer trading transitioned right into a swift drawdown for the stock market’s second of the three most dangerous months of the year. The fresh breakdowns in the major indices accompanied new lows for market breadth. Suddenly, what I … Read more