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 Yet another bearish engulfing day. Will THIS one matter to the stock market? In the following video, I review the converging bearish signals just days after all-time highs from the S&P 500 defied October’s warnings. (A summarized transcript follows the video – cleaning and editing help from ChatGPT) Summarized Transcript Introduction Hello … Read more
The year 2024 may be seen as the time the Bank of Japan’s “free lunch” came to an end. For decades, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) ran a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) that even descended into negative rates in 2016. The BoJ eased and eased monetary policy (aka printed and printed) to buy Japanese … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Signature stock market moments capped a remarkable year for the stock market. Two months of nearly relentless buying delivered a stunning 70% of the gains for the S&P 500 in 2023 after bulls exploded out of oversold trading conditions. Housing-related stocks soared even more as financial markets celebrate the presumed end of … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: What was quiet in the prior week is now loud and clear. Led by the NASDAQ, the stock market is in breakout mode. While market breadth is not quite endorsing the move, key breakouts are showing up in the indices and individual stocks. The inability of sellers to take advantage of bad … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The U.S.’s looming debt ceiling crisis is a manufactured emergency. The whole political wrangling could end in an instant with a very simple decision to keep budget negotiations in the budget process. Thus, the stock market’s relative calm about the political stalemate does not surprise me. Moreover, who are the motivated sellers … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary The fresh hope from a peak in mortgage rates has expanded into an ever stronger spring selling season for the housing market. Despite double digit year-over-year declines keeping existing home sales and housing starts in recessions, new home sales have almost reversed all their losses since the Fed started hiking … Read more
With the power change in the U.S. House of Representatives, 2023 will be another year of drama over the U.S.’s debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently brought the looming debt drama to the forefront of economic headlines by delivering the obligatory warning about the risk of default if Congress does not increase the debt … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: Throw out all the gradual scenarios for a potential climax. The stock market carved out a quick crest that puts the current rally at risk. Out-performance from small-cap stocks and late saves for the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ barely averted a technical setup for a bearish reversal. The stock market goes … Read more
Stock Market Commentary: The stock market continued its quest to convince us that the world is getting or soon will get a lot better. Perhaps the market is somehow feeding off the definitive hawkishness from the Federal Reserve. Whatever the explanation, market breadth expanded to levels last seen 4 months ago. The rally demonstrates broadly … 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