State of the Markets
Two Trends Worth Noting
With stocks waffling back and forth seemingly on a daily basis, the question of the day is who/what is driving this bus? In other words, what are traders watching to determine which way the trades are to be made on any given day? Is it Greece, the economy, the Fed, China, interest rates, …
Some History on Tight Trading Ranges
Unless you've been living in a cave, you are likely aware that stocks have traded in a series of tight trading ranges for the better part of the last six months. And given that the attention span of most traders on Wall Street approaches that of a gnat, this, uber-tight, and yet volatile …
A Crack In The Foundation
To be sure, this market often displays little to no memory from one day to the next. What was yesterday's reason to sell can easily be today's excuse to buy (and vice versa). One minute traders are worried about the dollar and Greece. The next, well, not so much. And so it goes in this ba…
Bonds May Hold The Key
The good news is that despite all the worry about earnings and the teeth gnashing about the recent spate of punk economic data, the S&P 500 is hitting fresh, new all-time highs again. The bad news is that, as has been the modus operandi of late, the moves to new highs have all display…
American Pharaoh Taking Things To New Heights?
Dave M. is under the weather and Paul Schatz of Heritage Capital, LLC is filling in again this morning. We are pleased to be able to offer Paul's thoughts on the state of the market and hope that you enjoy his views.
The bulls be…
A Forward Look at the Economy
This morning's "Daily State" report was penned by Robert Barone (Ph.D., Economics, Georgetown University), a Principal of Universal Value Advisors (UVA) based in Reno, Nevada and a fellow Investment Committee member with Dave Moenning at C…
Portfolio Impact of One Decent Report
Dave M. is in LA early this week taping a TV segment that will be aired on Fox Business and Bloomberg TV. This morning's "Daily State" report was penned by Paul Schatz of Heritage Capital, LLC. We are pleased to be able to offer Paul thoughts on…
Will the 15th Time Be the Charm?
Well, here we go again. Once again, the S&P 500 finished at what amounted to a fractional new all-time high on Thursday. And once again, the venerable index did not produce a convincing break above the top end of the trading range that has been with us for quite some time now. So once…
It's a Bull Market Until Proven Otherwise
From a long-term perspective, it is worth noting that the current advance in the S&P 500 is now the 2nd longest period in history without a 10% correction and the 3rd longest (but only by a hair) without a 20% correction (aka a bear market). Thus, it is easy to say that this bull mark…
Trend Challenged
With the market having been trend-challenged for quite some time now, one of the things I'm doing in order to try and keep things in perspective is force myself to look at the market from different time frames. But before we begin today, I thought it might be a good idea to review the def…