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 As new year weakness continues in the stock market, a serious tension has emerged in the message of the market between profit-taking versus a sustained top. An extended overbought period raises the stakes for the resolution of this tension. As long as the stock market remains overbought, I will assume the current … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Exactly two weeks ago, the stock market fell out of bed. I called the abrupt move the rally’s third strike. However, buyers jumped right back into the fray and overcame that third strike with a rally right to the second to last trading day of the year. So far, the new year … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Signature stock market moments capped a remarkable year for the stock market. Two months of nearly relentless buying delivered a stunning 70% of the gains for the S&P 500 in 2023 after bulls exploded out of oversold trading conditions. Housing-related stocks soared even more as financial markets celebrate the presumed end of … Read more
Stock Market Commentary For traders like myself who follow market cycles from extreme fear to extreme euphoria, last week’s trading action was astonishing. The stock market was already well overbought and stretched going into Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting. Yet, buyers STILL managed to go into extreme stretch mode. The Federal Reserve essentially declared the death … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Technical underpinnings are changing fast in the stock market. The first strike against the rally came in the form of initial struggles to break into overbought territory. A second strike has now emerged in the form of an appreciating Japanese yen (FXY). To the extent carry trades – borrowing cheap yen to … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Market breadth tentatively tested the overbought threshold before buyers got a hit and made a dash into overbought conditions. The previous tentativeness created a first strike against the market rally. The dash into overbought conditions refreshed a broad bullishness in the stock market. Long-term interest rates were once again the center of … 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
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 A bear market intrusion upset the dynamics of this oversold period. The NASDAQ is back in bear market territory. Both the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 broke down below their respective 200-day moving averages (DMAs) (the blue line in the charts below) and entered “correction” territory which is 10% below the 52-week … 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