Rolling Out the Red Carpet for the Bears
It’s been a rough week for the bulls with Apple taking it on the chin and the Dow Industrials down every day in addition to the last two days of the previous week. Early indications have the bears heading into the weekend with another victory. I want to go back to what now seems like a very prescient post on July 20 titled Trouble Brewing Beneath the Surface. On that day, all of the major indices were at rally highs […]
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Date: August 7, 2015
Fed Statement Day
Once again, the markets have come to the day when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) releases their statement regarding interest rates and their economic forecast. What to expect? Absolutely nothing on the interest rate front. As I have said before every meeting since rates went to essentially 0%, the Fed is not going to raise rates today. That day will wrongly come sooner than later, but not today. Rather, we will hear about the uneven recovery, wages, trade […]
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Date: July 29, 2015
Turnaround Tuesday
Stocks continue to be oversold in the short-term and a bounce is likely as soon as today. It’s Tuesday so don’t be surprised to hear the media focus on this historical reversal day. As I have mentioned before, I do not believe this is the rally to buy or chase. More than likely, stocks will bounce and regain some of the lost ground before rolling over again to what could possibly be the bottom to buy. I m keenly watching […]
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Date: July 28, 2015
China Again
A few weeks ago, I published a piece about the Shanghai having further to fall. Chinese Market Collapse Not Over Last night, Chinese stocks saw their largest decline since February 27, 2007, a day I vividly remember as I was running money for a hedge fund in Boston and about to leave for a week’s ski vacation in Utah to celebrate a belated 40th birthday with a bunch of friends. At that time, the prevailing sentiment was that the Asian […]
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Date: July 27, 2015
Homebuilders Still Offering Opportunities
The other week, I did an interesting segment with the good folks at Yahoo Finance regarding real estate, housing and the home building sector. You can view it HERE. In my 2015 Fearless Forecast, the home builders were one of my top sector plays for 2015 and they have not disappointed so far, although others certainly have! Sue Lee, the interviewer, asked me for a few companies which look particularly good. I answered by saying that I would much rather […]
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Date: July 23, 2015
Trouble Brewing Beneath the Surface
The more I analyze, the more I don’t like. The number of stocks participating in this rally has not been encouraging, but Friday’s action along with today so far is becoming eerily similar to that of 1999. Notice I said 1999 and not 2000. Valuations are nowhere near as egregious nor is sentiment showing much greed, not mention frothy. And monetary conditions are certainly not restrictive. On Friday, on the New York Stock Exchange, there were almost 1000 more stocks […]
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Date: July 20, 2015
Chinese Market Collapse Not Over
I remember the outrage when the government sought to pull off TARP in 2008, first buying troubled, illiquid assets from the big banks which then morphed into outright capital injections into the banks. When QE was announced, the calls were equally as emotional, not to mention the myriad of special Fed programs designed to provide liquidity in the financial system when there was little. I can only imagine what those naysayers believe now regarding China. This is not a new […]
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Date: July 15, 2015
Another Bad Deal… Iran
We woke up this morning to learn that the big western nations struck a deal with Iran to lift the economic embargo in return for nuclear concessions. In life, I have always tried to avoid rewarding bad behavior. Once you start down that path, it never ends. Just look what happened in this country with the S&L crisis, Orange County, Long-Term Capital and Bear Stearns. Talk about moral hazard! While Lehman Brothers put an end to that, look at how […]
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Date: July 14, 2015
Reboot Greece
Since the latest “crisis” in Greece unfolded in the markets almost two weeks ago, I continued to offer that China was the real problem, but Greece was dominating the headlines. Greece doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, economically or market-wise. And even though they struck an absolutely horrific deal for their country, stocks will rally in the short-term because the uncertainty is lifted. Who in their right mind would agree to more tax hikes, more austerity and […]
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Date: July 13, 2015
Q3 Stock Market Scenarios Unfolding Nicely
Last week after the Dow plunged 350 points and began to bounce, I offered the two most probable scenarios for stocks, both of which included new multi-month lows before any real rally would begin. Stock Market Scenarios for Q3 My conclusion was, “just because we saw extreme readings on Monday doesn’t mean that the ultimate low was seen. I would argue against that. Monday’s snowball day was an important piece, but far from the final piece. Wash out readings like […]
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Date: July 10, 2015
