ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Since the year 2000, delivering a different narrative for students and fans of financial markets: stocks, options, currencies, Bitcoin, and more…
Stock Market Commentary: The stock market overcame a serious setback with an impressive rebound. The rally started before Jay Powell announced the Federal Reserve’s latest decision on monetary policy and pushed higher afterward. The market seemed determine to launch as the opening gap up immediately erased the previous day’s loss. Buyers never looked back and … Read more
The landscape of inflation and monetary policy continues to change fast. The June inflation numbers disappointed expectations once again for peak inflation. A surprise 1% point rate hike by the Bank of Canada combined with this hot inflation accelerated the timeline for peak interest rates from the Federal Reserve. Instead of a 75 basis point … Read more
That sigh of disappointment was Wall Street looking for signs of a weakening labor market in the June jobs report. Instead, that report showed job creation remains robust in the economy. Not only did the unemployment rate remain steady at a low 3.6% with the economy adding 372,000 jobs (far more than “consensus” expectations), the … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The edginess of the stock market continued this week. After “turnaround Tuesday” delivered broad based gains for the market, Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony in front of Congress produced a familiar fade in the shadow of a bear market. Surprisingly, the buying was enough to end oversold conditions. Yet, the major indices … Read more
It is easy to forget that the months going into the COVID-19 pandemic were filled with fears of a recession. In response to mounting economic and political pressures, the Federal Reserve, led by Jerome Powell, reversed course on the Fed’s 3-year effort to slowly normalize monetary policy with what he called a “mid-cycle” rate adjustment. … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Despite recent bouts of trading in or like a bear market, market breadth has somehow managed to avoid closing in oversold conditions. In fact, the last “official” oversold period was 518 trading days ago. Yet, since the NASDAQ topped out in November, market breadth has dropped into and out of oversold on … Read more
In a blunt and direct discussion, Bank of Canada (BoC) Governor Tiff Macklem made a compelling case for fighting inflation by declaring that “the economy has entered this period of excess demand with considerable momentum and high inflation, and we are committed to getting inflation back to target.” To do so, the BoC hiked its … Read more
Two recent studies from the Federal Reserve say a lot about its core concerns for inflation. These studies were released back-to-back just one week following Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirming the new religion at the Fed for (aggressively) fighting inflation. Researchers at the St. Louis Federal Reserve identified housing services (aka rents) as a core … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: How many times and how many ways does the Fed need to communicate its seriousness about normalizing monetary policy and fighting inflation? Apparently, the answer for Fed-speak is many times and a LOT of ways. Fed Governor Lael Brainard delivered one way with a speech on Tuesday titled “Variation in the Inflation … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Forget recession fears. Forget an aggressively hawkish Fed. Forget the stock chart holdouts. Bullish belief delivered another powerful confirmation of what has become an exceptionally strong bounce from March’s nervous test of the last oversold point. The rally launched from the March lows and barely rested or paused. The rally has been … Read more