ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
The last Housing Market Review covered data released in February, 2016. At the time, sentiment and data ahead of the Spring selling season was not as strong as I had anticipated. The iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB) has gained little since then and has even stalled out at resistance at its 200-day moving average … Read more
The last Housing Market Review covered data released in January, 2016. At the time, I warily looked at a nervous market and insisted that the steep decline in the iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB) and individual home builder stocks presented a great buying opportunity. I was conservative in my expectations including looking out to … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on January 19, 2016. Click here to read the entire piece.) A year ago, KB Home (KBH) reported Q4 2014 earnings that greatly disappointed financial markets. The stock lost 16% in the immediate aftermath. The stock took 5 months to recover only … Read more
When I decided to start writing a monthly summary of the status of the housing market, I had assumed that housing was going to remain in or settle into a general holding pattern. I assumed little was going to happen to the upside or the downside for a while. Under those conditions, it did not … Read more
My case for managing risk by peeling back some of my holdings in homebuilders turned out to be quite timely. In what has become a near regular pattern for the iShares US Home Construction (ITB), sharp selling has quickly followed a strong run-up and rush of excitement in homebuilders. The sellers and bears are almost … Read more
(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more
(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on November 10, 2014. Click here to read the entire piece.) The bursting of the housing bubble destroyed the supply chain at several critical junctures. For example, employment in the industry collapsed. While the overall unemployment rate in the industry has returned … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on February 12, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) KB Home (KBH) has made good on its promise to focus more on short-term monetization. Since reporting disappointing earnings on January 13, 2015, KBH has already announced six openings, grand openings, … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on September 7, 2014. Click here to read the entire piece.) I tracked down an article posted in Boston.com called “Renters Suffer as Evictions Surge in U.S.” after hearing the topic referenced in a recent Slate Money podcast. One of the guests … Read more