ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Day-to-day, Mr. Market’s mood seems to swing dramatically up and down with little consistent rhyme or reason. The neat rationalizations of the bulls one day give way to the equally neat rationalizations of the bears the next day. For example, the market is very undervalued because of record low Treasury bill rates, highly stimulative monetary … Read more
The percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages, T2108, closed at 19%, below the 20% threshold that indicates an oversold stock market. The stock market has reached these levels only one other time since the March, 2009 lows – this was in February when the market last cared about the sovereign debt … Read more
Toll Brothers (TOL) has disappointed market participants with its earnings reports over the past 12 months. For example, December’s earnings generated a one-day drop over 7% that finished eliminating a strong gap up in response to November’s preliminary report. However, February’s earnings barely generated a yawn. A week later, the stock resumed an uptrend that … Read more
In a year where Chinese solar companies have generally out-performed American solar companies, LDK stands out as a laggard. LDK is down 31% for the year whereas every other major Chinese solar stock traded on the American exchanges is no worse than flat on the year. When Q-Cells announced it would terminate a supply contract … Read more
The VXX is an ETF that “offers exposure to a daily rolling long position in the first and second month VIX futures contracts and reflects the implied volatility of the S&P 500 index at various points along the volatility forward curve” (from Yahoo!Finance). This means it offers a method for placing bets on the direction … Read more