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 Financial markets are supposed to act like discounting mechanisms which use the wisdom of the crowd to anticipate important events. The stock market stalled and then broke down ahead of the election. Excluding a last minute rush to buy on election day, I assumed the stock market might have a muted reaction … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Can a bullish divergence create a bottom for stocks? The stock market ended last week with an emphatic “YES!” A wild week got treacherous after Thursday’s META pricequake. Investors rushed for the exits after Meta Platforms (META) reported earnings. The sympathy selling went far and wide. Fortunately, earnings from Alphabet (GOOG) and … Read more
Stock Market Commentary While I watch the tense trading unfold in NVDA, the VIX, the volatility index, has suddenly returned to my radar as an indicator of interest. Thursday’s stock market setback came with a surging VIX that closed at a new high of the year. The regular programming of the volatility faders actually failed … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Instead of climbing a wall of worry, the market is climbing a wall of frustration (I stole that from a friend of mine). No matter what economic indicators bears stare at to declare impending doom, the jobs market just keeps coming in hot month-after-month. While a widening swath of stocks are breaking … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The annual Jackson Hole confab of central bankers starts this coming Thursday. Almost like technical poetry, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ are back to the highs directly preceding Jackson Hole 2022. Depending on your perspective, this Jackson Hole redux either represents a bullish confirmation of the market’s resilience after 18 months … Read more
Last Friday’s 29% plunge in Opera Limited (OPRA) seized the attention of the company and its “cornerstone shareholder” Kunlun Tech Limited. With the swiftness of a crisis management team, the two combined to sing a sweeter tune for investors. In a follow-up SEC filing, Opera Limited clarified that last week’s announced shelf filing simply replaces … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Was the second trading day of February the peak for the S&P 500? After a 1.4% gain nearly finished reversing the losses from last August’s Jackson Hole, the index lost momentum. While the index churned for the following 2 weeks, trashed stocks from 2022 continued to soar. Even that momentum seemed to … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Last week ended the overbought period with a relatively strong report on initial claims for unemployment. The stock market – still freshly stung with the memory of the previous week‘s exceptionally strong jobs report – sold off sharply in response to the good economic news. A stubbornly resilient labor market continues to … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The stock market had quite a bullish week especially considering another Federal Reserve meeting is right around the corner. The week started with a push into overbought conditions and buyers proceeded to slowly steepen overbought conditions the rest of the week. I am quite surprised by this bullish anticipation ahead of the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The Q3 2022 U.S. GDP report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis undermined this year’s strident claims that the economy overall is already in recession. Q3 GDP grew 2.6% largely thanks to a 2.8% growth in personal expenditures for services (one more validation of the relatively strong jobs market) and thanks to … Read more