Daily State of the Markets
The Bears Are Making Their List and Checking it Twice...
Stocks rallied back on Tuesday as the S&P 500 erased the majority of Monday's decline. The venerable Dow Jones Industrial Average went one better and managed to close at a fresh new all-time high. However, the rest of the major indices did not follow suit, which suggests that there st…
Are The Oil Worries For Real?
You knew it was coming. After a record-breaking run, where the S&P 500 managed to close above its 5-day moving average for a jaw-dropping 29 consecutive days and gained +11.3% along the way, some worry has suddenly returned to the stock market.
In reality, it almost doesn't ma…
Oil: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Although the Dow Jones Industrial Average eeked out another new all-time high close on Friday and the NASDAQ 100 stepped lively into the Promised Land, the S&P 500, the Midcap 400 and the Russell 2000 all went the other direction, losing -0.25%, -0.80% and -1.49% respectively.
The Bulls Are Running, But It Is Now Time To...
The recent stock market rally has clearly been one for the record books. For those of you keeping score at home, the S&P 500 has now closed above its 5-day moving average for an eye-popping 29 consecutive days. And given that the old record was 22 straight closes above the 5-day, it i…
Holiday Seasonality In Play, But...
The seasonality surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday tends to be modestly favorable. While the indices do tend to advance the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, the size of the gains are not terribly meaningful. However, the historical odds do seem to favor the idea of the bulls c…
All Bets Are Off
Any analysis of the stock market action or the macroeconomic picture done prior to Friday morning is likely to be tossed out the window this morning. The bottom line is the action taken by the People's Bank of China and the most recent comments made by the ECB's Mario Draghi now trump eve…
The Bears Are Baffled
The major indices stepped lively to a fresh set of new highs yesterday with the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 all finishing at their highest levels ever. However, as has been the case for much of the year, the smallcaps, midcaps, and microcaps failed to confirm. And while this situation…
The Biggest Surprise Wasn't...
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day Monday wasn't the fact that Japan suddenly finds itself back in a recession. Nor the fact that the Bank of England's Mark Carney began to publicly fret about deflation. Or that Super Mario started talking about QE again. Or even that David Cameron s…
The Future of Investing: A NEW Diversification Approach
A self-proclaimed investing "newbie" expressed appreciation for Friday's missive and the introduction of some long-term indicators that can indeed help just about anyone "time" the market successfully. This particular reader decided…