Daily State of the Markets
The Focus Remains on Fed and Headlines
The early action on this fine Monday morning suggests that traders are still taking their cues from any/all headlines relating to Ebola. U.S. futures had been steady for much of the morning until a headline saying that a pediatric patient is evaluated crossed the wires. Almost instantly, …
A Case of The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
To the casual observer, it was a good day on Wall Street yesterday. The Dow gained more than 215 points, the NASDAQ rallied +1.6 percent, and the Russell 2000 tacked on +1.8 percent. However, to those watching the action a bit more closely, Thursday was a case of the good, the bad, and th…
The Only Story That Mattered
There were three stories in the market on Wednesday, but in reality only one really mattered on the day. You see, when reports start hitting the wires that there are multiple gunmen shooting at people in Canada's Parliament building, traders' thoughts turn to one thing and one thing only:…
In Case You've Forgotten, It Doesn't Pay To Fight The...
The bulls (or perhaps more accurately, the bull algos) put on quite a show again on Tuesday. For the fourth day in a row, stocks rocketed higher and the S&P 500 finished with the best one-day gain in more than a year. Not bad for a market that had been left for dead four days ago, rig…
The Big Picture: Time to Buy The Dip?
Sometimes it can be advantageous to step back from the blinking screens and the wild intraday swings in order to try and get a feel for the bigger picture. On that note, there can be little argument that the U.S. stock market has undergone a corrective phase since what is now referred to …
Central Bankers Start Talking The Talk
Thursday was yet another wild ride on Wall Street. While the intraday swings paled in comparison to Wednesday's insanity, there was still plenty of volatility to go around. With the algos clearly still in charge of the action, it is somewhat difficult to make heads or tails of it all. But…
There Is a Sixth "E" to Worry About
As of Tuesday afternoon, the stock market was struggling with "The Five E's". Traders were fretting about the potential impact of Ebola, Europe's sinking economy, the big dive in
The Problem Are The Five E's
Identifying the drivers of stock market action can be helpful in determining when a move is overdone and due to reverse. For example, the various wannabe crises that have cropped up over the past two years have all fizzled out in short order as investors realized there was nothing major t…
Should You Worry About the 200-Day Break?
For much of Monday, the S&P 500 traded in a relatively narrow range with the market appearing to be searching for direction. After a decline of more than 5% over the past few weeks, most traders were looking for a bounce. After all, every single time the market had "dipped" over the p…
An Awful Lot To Consider
Anyone expecting a quiet Columbus Day Holiday in the markets (where stock markets are open but banks and bond markets are closed) will likely to be disappointed as the news flow over the weekend and the early action in the futures market suggests that last week's volatility could continue…