State of the Markets

And We're Back To That...

Good Monday morning and welcome back to the land of blinking screens. The key to the early trade today is easy to summarize as uncertainty has returned to the markets. The question, of course, is to what degree the election, the Fed, interest rates, and oil will spook the markets on this …

There Are Three Kinds of Lies...

As the saying goes, there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. This age-old cliché is especially true in this business as investors of all shapes and sizes regularly use statistics to prove their point and "talk their books." One of the most i…

My Best Guess Is...

To be sure, it has been a long slog in the stock market for the past three months. In essence, stocks rallied hard on expectations of further monetary stimulus from the folks at the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of Japan after the BREXIT vote. However, after the…

Should We Be Worried About the Economy?

Going through the myriad of indicators and models I review each week, I was surprised to find that my primary economic model (which is developed and maintained by Ned Davis Research) had slipped from neutral to moderately negative this week. In fact, the current weekly reading of the mode…

Indicator Review: Stay The Course

Good Monday morning and welcome back. Let's once again start the week off by reviewing the state of our major indicators and models. The first step is a review of the price/trend of the market. Here's my current take on the state of the technical picture... There ca…

Par For The Course

The action remained "sloppy" on Thursday as once again, the early gains were met with selling. And if one looks closely at the charts, yesterday marked the sixteenth consecutive session where at least some sort of significant intraday selling took place. In other words, you have to go bac…

Here Is Something You CAN Worry About...

One of the keys to being successful in the stock market game is having the ability to remain objective. In short, it is critical to focus on what "is" happening in the market as opposed to what you think "should" be happening. It is employing the latter approach - especially when coupled …

Investors Should Stop Worrying About...

The recent trend of intraday strength being met with selling continued yesterday. As an indication that the action remains sloppy and conflicted, I present the fact that stocks have now flip-flopped between gains and losses on a closing basis for nine consecutive sessions now. And…

Uncertainty Seems To Be The Key

With the focal point(s) of the stock market appearing to move around a fair amount lately, it is important to keep up with all the issues. By my count there are six worries/concerns at this time including the dollar, rates, the Fed, the state of the economy, valuations, and the election.

Indicator Review: It's Getting Tense Out There, But...

Good morning and welcome back. Since the focus has been jumping around a bit lately, it will be interesting to see which issues catch the interest of traders on this fine Monday morning. But first, let's stay disciplined and start the week off right by reviewing the state of our major ind…