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 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
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: September was about as somber as it gets for financial markets. The S&P 500 lost 9.3% for the month which falls well below both the median and average (negative) historical performance for the index. With the June lows breached, the pandemic-era gains for the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ are now at … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Market breadth was last this high 17 months ago. At that time, my favorite technical indicator was on its way down as a part of another buy-the-dip moment for the pandemic-inspired rally in the stock market. This time, market breadth is sitting right on top of the threshold of overbought conditions. The … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Once again, Apple Inc (AAPL) became a poster child of market sentiment. When AAPL pulled away from resistance at its 50-day moving average (DMA) (the red line below), the move looked like a tease with bear market conditions still in force. Two weeks later, AAPL emerged vindicated as a 3.3% post-earnings gain … Read more