Internal or Momentum Bottom Being Hammered In
Stocks continue to be very volatile, one of the primary casualties of higher interest rates, but certainly from the dislocations in the energy market, which has seen an epic and historic collapse. I imagine that the large oil-based sovereign wealth funds in Norway, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar have been massive sellers of global equities this month to continue to fund their social programs in the face of imploding energy prices. The relentless and indiscriminate selling has all the hallmarks […]
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Date: January 21, 2016
Tuesday’s Binary Outcome
On Friday, we finally had the “puke” opening. There was some panic, desperation and despondency. In the “fight or flight” debate, there were more than a few investors taking to the skies! Given the very heightened volatility, Tuesday’s trading should not be quiet. Rather, the stock market should see another large move. Scenario A has the bulls putting up a real stand right from the opening, perhaps an old fashioned “gap and go” snap back rally. On the other end […]
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Date: January 18, 2016
Puke Opening is Here
As the relentless selling pressure in stocks continues, my last few pieces talked about getting closer to at least a trading low, but not quite there yet. Even as stocks bounced back on Thursday, the tune was the same. I was waiting for that really ugly, panic driven opening where stocks saw there largest point decline of the correction. As I type this, the Dow looks to be down 400 points and this certainly qualifies as a “puke” opening. While […]
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Date: January 15, 2016
Stocks Bouncing But No Bottom Yet
I won’t rehash what’s been plastered all over the media. Selling in stocks has been relentless and the worst start to any year ever. It “feels” like the market is collapsing and harkens back to 2008. As I like to repeat from time to time, feel is not real. Yes, the major indices are down upper single digits in 2016, but I would argue that if this decline occurred any other time of the year, it would not be getting […]
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Date: January 14, 2016
January Early Warning for Rest of Year
We now know that the first five days of the year were down which became a popular indicator for the year as a whole by Yale Hirsch of Stock Traders Almanac fame. While waiting for the month of January to conclude, I went back and looked at the first five days of every down year since 1951. Then I looked to see if January as a whole was down. Finally, I found all the times where January’s weakness exceeded the […]
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Date: January 13, 2016
2008 Redux This is Not
2016 is just a week old, yet all I am reading and hearing is that it’s going to be a terrible year for stocks and similar to 2008. 2007 – 2009 was a generational bear market, the likes of which have only been seen during the Great Depression. These types of strong deflationary spirals take decades of mistakes to create and leave investors scarred even longer. In the western world, we have never, ever seen a repeat within 10, 20 […]
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Date: January 12, 2016
Water Needs to Find Its Own Level in China
Last summer I included China’s stock market in a few pieces as it cratered lower and lower. Remember, as I explained, while China may be the second largest economy on earth, they are relatively new to the capitalist system. They have, are and will continue to experience “growing pains” as the powers that be seem to believe they know better when it comes to controls in their financial markets. Over the summer as their market collapsed, the government instituted all […]
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Date: January 7, 2016
Beware of Believing in Santa Claus
The traditional Santa Claus rally of the last five trading days of the year did not materialize. As I have mentioned before, Yale Hirsch of Stock Traders Almanac fame made popular the rhyme, “If Santa Claus should fail to call, bears may come to Broad and Wall”, meaning that bear markets typically follow in the ensuing years where there is no Santa Claus rally. While it all sounds nice and neat, the data do not support that conclusion. In 2014, […]
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Date: January 5, 2016
Three Last Minute Year-End Tips
As Kenny Loggins wrote, “Make no mistake where you are. This is it.” The last day of the last week of the last month of the last quarter of the year. 2015 will soon be in the books and it will go down as a year where the stock market was down a little and the bond market was down more while commodities were down huge. As I sit here finishing up my final blog post and newsletter of the […]
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Date: December 30, 2015
Santa Claus is in the House!
The last week of 2015. I hope you have been enjoying the holidays. The major stock market indices continue to behave as I spelled out over the past few weeks. Santa Claus came right on schedule and the seasonal trend has him taking a break to close the year with some mild strength to begin 2016. While I was very pleased that stocks reversed early last week and have followed through on the gains, we still need to see all […]
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Date: December 29, 2015
