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 Last week’s trading had something for almost everyone: volatility, churn, recovery, and a bank scare. A familiar story about renewed U.S.–China trade tensions expanded into a larger mosaic of market stress and resilience. Still, given market breadth remains broken, I see a market skating on the edge. The volatility index (VIX) summarizes … Read more
Stock Market Commentary In a flashback to August’s opening trading salvo, September trading started with a sharp pullback. The decline fit the standard theme of “professional” traders and investors returning from summer vacations to take profits from a market levitating on low volume vapors. However, sensing redux price action, the market’s persistent buyers jumped right … 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 After a holiday-shortened week, a market breadth breakout signals sentiment near peak bullishness. The market also seemed to interpret an unexpectedly strong jobs report as a positive, even as odds for rate cuts plunged (at the time of writing, 5% for later this month and 69.4% for September, down from 91% a … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market transitioned from a nervous calm to a confident calm. The NASDAQ and S&P 500 hit fresh all-time highs faster than I could have expected during the depths of the tariff drama, trauma, and noise. Nvidia (NVDA) led the way with a mid-week breakout to all-time highs. The market’s confident calm … Read more