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 After a month of churning, market breadth is wavering again. This slip is just about the only sign that the market cares at all about looming risks from a potential government shutdown. Even the volatility index (VIX) dropped 8.6% on Friday and remains just below where it closed right before the tariff … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week was billed as another marquee Fed week. While decision day brought a lot of intraday volatility, the churn became a mere speedbump as market breadth yawned and the stock market melt-up continued. The main message I heard from the Fed was an acknowledgement of an economy weak enough to warrant … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market leaned into a melt-up as a constant stream of IPOs signaled risk-on appetite even as a massive downward revisions in jobs in the 12 months through March, 2025 implied more than expected economic weakness ahead. Rate cuts beckon as a result of this broadening weakness, and Wall Street has … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week delivered one of the most bullish one-day expansions of market breadth I have ever seen. On Friday, August 22nd, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke at the Jackson Hole confab and gave financial markets sufficiently dovish signals to reignite a rally that had waned most of the week. Big cap … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Inflation grabbed the headlines last week, but market breadth was just as important for the stock market. With financial markets initially feeling good about the CPI report, buyers rushed for laggard stocks and created a market breadth revival for two days. The abrupt sentiment shift nearly eliminated all my concerns about a … Read more