ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
On May 15, 2006, I wrote a piece called “Evidence of A Tiring Bull.” I used T2107, the percentage of stocks trading above their 200-day moving averages (DMAs), to make the strong claim that the three-year old bull market was nearing an end. T2107 had been in decline for two years, and I projected the … Read more
I was clearly far too early in restarting a pairs trade short Microsoft (MSFT) and long Intel (INTC). Over the past two months, the performance of MSFT has steadily improved, while Intel’s performance has steadily worsened. The MSFT/INTC ratio is now at 10 month highs. Source: stockcharts.com Typically, I would look at this divergence and … Read more
Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT) have been tech laggards for some time now. However, over the past week, both stocks finally breached the all-important 200-day moving average (DMA) line of resistance (charts at the end of this piece). While MSFT is struggling to add to its small post-earnings gains, INTC has completely reversed the post-earnings … Read more
The post-earnings selling in Intel (INTC) has become uncanny in its consistency. Four out of the last six earnings reports have resulted in selling even as INTC’s headline earnings news has generally been OK to good. Three of the four bouts of selling followed immediately after INTC opened its first post-earnings trading day higher. This … Read more
Adobe Systems, Inc. (ADBE) surged as high as 17% today after news leaked about a private meeting between ADBE and Microsoft (MSFT) company executives. The most salient rumor surrounding this meeting is that MSFT is considering acquiring ADBE in addition to other strategic options for going after Apple’s (AAPL) dominance in the mobile device market. … Read more
Ever since my friend “Mr. Bull” gave me a ribbing over writing a bearish piece on Intel (INTC) the day before a strong one-day rally, we have used Intel as a metaphor for whether the bulls or the bears are in control of the market. For the five weeks since then, INTC has gone nearly … Read more
We finally got the news on INTC that the market appears to have long anticipated. This morning, Intel (INTC) lowered revenue and margin guidance. Revenue guidance is now “…$11.0 billion, plus or minus $200 million, compared to the previous expectation of between $11.2 and $12.0 billion.” Margin guidance is “…now 66 percent, plus or minus … Read more
After tumbling hard last week out of severely overbought conditions (T2108 is now at a comfortably neutral 55%), the S&P 500’s slide has slowed against what looks like a sludge of apathy. Volume has quickly dried up since last Wednesday’s 2.8% loss and now stochastics suggest the S&P 500 is oversold. I suspect the stock … Read more
It took a little over a week, but Intel (INTC) finally succumbed to the anticipated retest of the old downtrend line (click for a larger view). *Chart created using TeleChart: Multiple catalysts seemed to weigh down on INTC on Tuesday: Taiwanese manufacturers of notebooks reported large drops in sales and Quanta warned it will not … Read more
For many of us, investing over the last 10 years has been much more difficult and a lot less fun than it was in the 90s. In the 90s, it was easy to accept the religion of “buy and hold”, keep the faith that assets are pre-ordained to increase in value, and drown oneself in … Read more