ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
The bearish to bullish reversal ended for home builder stocks with a return to bear market territory. Today, October 9, 2025, the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) dropped under the threshold that defines a bear market: 20% below the all-time high (see chart below). The 2.6% slide on the day is part of a … Read more
Stock Market Commentary We now have a stock market melt-up alongside a government melt-down…and financial markets could not care less. In fact, the stock market can hardly get more bullish with the long-term, mid-term, and short-term uptrends each flashing green and pointing upward. Still, I cannot help checking my peripheral vision for signs of caution. … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Last week ended with an historic tech outage that took down operations around the globe. This event was a poetic punctuation to a week that featured a sharp and toppy end to overbought conditions. The stock market’s tech outage features blow-off tops, double-tops, and some key breakdowns in individual stocks. Still, while … Read more
Stock Market Commentary April showers have arrived in the form of stockdrops instead of raindrops. After a near relentless push higher every month since November, the S&P 500 is down 4.4% month-to-date. Both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ have confirmed bearish breakdowns and the ETF of small caps, IWM, is again in a bear … Read more
Stock Market Commentary There is a deepening irony in my on-going bearishness on the stock market. The sector most visibly responsible for the anti-bearish animal spirits leaning against poor market breadth is the same sector I remain unapologetically bullish about: Artificial Intelligence (AI). The ironic contrast was in full display last week as the bullish … Read more