ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
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
Earlier, I noted that Intel’s stock looked ominous given so many stocks were making bullish post-earnings reversals. On Friday, Intel (INTC) finally gave up the rest of its impressive post-earnings gains. On a day in which the market staged a relatively impressive comeback from initial selling (the NASDAQ closed marginally UP), INTC closed on its … Read more
With tongue reaching for the cheek last week, I declared the market both extremely undervalued and very overvalued, guessing that “as earnings season grinds on, I suspect the near-predictable pattern of post-earnings fades will finally wear thin, giving way to more bullish behavior.” I did not expect the turn to happen so clearly and dramatically … Read more
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
Earnings excitement is one casualty of the current selling in the market. Several big cap stocks and multinational companies generated a lot of hype and attention from their earnings results this quarter. A number of those gains have been erased and then some. Four stocks have attracted my particular interest: Apple (APPL) – A market … Read more
Just over a month has elapsed since I concluded that S&P 500 was reaching a short-term bottom but would not challenge its 52-week highs (set in January) for “many months to come.” On Thursday, the S&P 500 printed a new 52-week closing high by one penny. On Friday, the index made a new intra-day high … Read more