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 Is another tease for the bears underway? The current bullish rally has included so many temporary bearish signals that I had to stop using baseball metaphors to call strikes. Now, the latest bearish signal looks like the most ominous yet. In the wake of February’s job report, price action delivered a wicked … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A decisive end to the extended overbought period signaled the arrival of bearish conditions last week. Bears boldly sold for one more day before a “stock bulls taunt” forced suddenly hesitant bears into a partial retreat. A sharp market divergence is now taking hold. While the major indices rallied off support and … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market indices benefited from a strong 2021. year. However, under the surface, declining market breadth betrayed the bullish narrative for a wide swath of stocks. A disappointing start to the new year for the indices was even worse for those stocks already limping into the end of last year. The … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market indices enjoyed an impressive year. However, weak and declining market breadth produced numerous exceptions to the strong performance of indices and ETFs. A number of important and well-known individual stocks corrected, collapsed, and crashed in 2021. For some, the tailwinds of the pandemic ran out. For others, investors tired … Read more
Stock Market Commentary It was a close call. The technical deterioration of the previous week put the Santa rally in peril. At the start of trading last week, the Grinch roasted Santa enough to ignite oversold trading conditions. Santa’s revenge came in the form of a sharp rebound out of the 1-day oversold period. Subsequently, … Read more
Stock Market Commentary In last week’s decision on monetary policy, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell directly and fully acknowledged inflationary pressures in the economy. Perhaps lost in the inflation buzz was Powell’s quick commentary on financial stability during the Q&A session: “…asset valuations are somewhat elevated, I would say.” Of course, various folks in the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market’s dip into oversold territory lasted a day. Subsequent trading has carved out a new divergence. Big cap stocks like Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) helped bullrush the S&P 500 into an all-time high while a wide swath of stocks were left behind. Accordingly, market breadth is languishing again. The following stocks charts … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market rebounded out of oversold trading conditions but ended the week in ugly fashion. The combination produced fascinating snapshots of an ugly oversold bounce. Expensive growth stocks are rapidly falling out of favor while a convergence of negative headlines and uncertainties is painting plenty of ugly all over the stock … Read more
Stock Market Commentary And just like that, the bullish expansion of market breadth hit a wall…a wall of inflation. The October Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all urban consumers apparently surprised financial markets by soaring 0.9% from September and 6.2% over October, 2020. The chart below shows that both surges are at the high end … Read more
The Follow-Through: Strong Start for Stocks The month of September enjoyed a strong start as last week’s fairy dust from J-Pow continued to work its magic. Short-term market breadth with AT50, the percentage of stocks trading above their 50-day moving averages (DMAs), also continuing higher while leaving behind the longer-term breadth indicator in AT200, the … Read more