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 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
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 At the end of September, I asked skeptically whether an oversold bounce could prevent an October swoon. As I suspected at the time, the answer turned out to be no. The market-moving headlines for October have included weighty, tragic, and alarming news making for a demotivating trading environment. An oversold bounce earlier … 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 The economist “consensus” expectations for September job growth missed the mark by a mile, 336,000 actual versus 170,000 projected. These big misses represent the on-going struggles of conventional economics to understand the dynamics of today’s post-pandemic economy. Initially, the good jobs news frightened financial markets which think of good news as bad … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The last quarter of the year and the third of the stock market’s most dangerous months started off with a swirl of signals. Each of the three major indices exhibited its own behavior. Small cap stocks plunged and uncorked oversold trading conditions. The S&P 500 clung to flatline. The NASDAQ happily shot … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The sentiment shifts following the bounce from oversold conditions swung from bullish and encouraging to tantalizing and disappointing. The stock market has a precarious setup going into a likely October swoon. The prospects for the current oversold bounce to prevent the October swoon hinge on a swirl of technical signs and fundamental … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Oversold trading conditions await no more. The stock market went over hard and dropped into oversold territory with a sinking feeling. Important support levels broke down, interest rates continued to surge, the U.S. dollar continued to race higher, and, returning to a theatre near you for yet another dreadful showing is Groundhog … 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