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 There are not enough superlatives in the dictionary to describe what happened today. We have borne witness to a multi-day, multi-week saga of economic warfare, tariff chaos, a rolling stock market crash – and now, an historic oversold bounce. President Trump has gone from tariffs, to tariff flexibility, to tariff reciprocity to … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market fell into chaos all over again as the U.S. retaliated against China’s tariff retaliation, hiking tariffs up to 104%. This escalation halted a rally that started as solid follow-through from the bullish engulfing bottom from the previous trading day. The whipsaw action underscored the fragility of technical setups in … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The trading week started with a powerful jolt to the market. The major catalyst was a rumor that President Trump was considering a 90-day delay on tariffs, triggering a nearly 30-minute, $2.5 trillion rally. While ultimately unfounded, the rumor represented the kind of response markets expect: when financial markets panic, policy-makers panic. … Read more
A Flashback On September 29, 2008, a nervous and weak stock market anxiously awaited the outcome of a Congressional vote on a $700B Wall Street bailout package known as TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) as part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. According to briefing.com, the S&P 500 (SPY) was down about … Read more
Stock Market Commentary A good friend of mine introduced me to the phrase – now we’re cooking with gas! In today’s context, this phrase refers to some startling developments in the rolling crash in the stock market. The technical damage was thorough, unrelenting, and nearly merciless. Chaos in economic policy chaos has fully transferred into … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Today was a brutal day in the stock market. The only good news I can report is that market breadth finally dropped into my official oversold territory. However, “so what?” sounds like an appropriate question to ask in the face of deepening market angst over tariffs. For example, a headline from Yahoo … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The stock market suffered experienced a jarring selloff during the announcement of reciprocal tariffs from President Trump, a move that, despite ample telegraphing, shocked both investors and global trade partners. The Futures dropped sharply, with even oil down 2.4% and the S&P 500 plunging as much as 3% after-hours. This tariff crash … Read more
Stock Market Commentary We closed out March and Q1 with a wild day of trading. As captured in a headline from Yahoo Finance, “Wall Street closes out worst quarter since 2022,” sentiment was deeply negative. Headlines about tariffs, economic troubles, and Coinbase’s (COIN) worst quarter since the FTX collapse added to the sense of dread. … Read more
Stock Market Commentary And so a bear market ends, for the S&P 500 at least. The stock market enjoyed a strong follow-through day supported by previous oversold conditions. To represent the most recent technical developments, I created a well-defined area for the bear market called the “area of agitation”. The S&P 500’s breakout above this … Read more
Stock Market Commentary The market delivered a contradictory signal to end the week. For example, while swingtradebot flashed very bullish technical indicators, market breadth declined the last two days of the week. This divergence is symbolic of the swirling tensions in the air. After, the three-week sell-off into a bear market took advantage of rising … Read more