S&P 500 Poised For New Highs
Price-wise, the bulls had another good day on Friday with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 leading the way to sizable gains. It was a strong five days for the bulls coming off meeting my minimum downside target last Monday. To poke holes, after the open, price didn’t do anything. It just meandered about most of the day. And there were only 600 more stocks going than down on a solid rally. That number should have been higher. Let’s also […]
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Date: January 21, 2025
Fearless Forecast 2025 – The Year Momentum Died
I have been publishing my Fearless Forecast for more than 30 years. I don’t know many or really any other advisor that sticks their neck out like this year in and year out. That’s one of the many reasons why we are different. I love producing original content, especially when it flies in the face of consensus or conventional wisdom. Our industry has a lot of lazy people. I don’t know how individual investors tolerate and accept the regurgitation of […]
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Date: January 20, 2025
So Far So Good For The Bulls
Since my minimum downside target was met on Monday the bulls’ response has been solid across the major stock market indices. All have rallied smartly. Below are the S&P 500 and Russell 2000. While the former looks to be in better shape than the latter, the Russell has more upside potential simply because it sold off the most. Several things still bother me. Sentiment never fully cycled to bearish although market internals did. I don’t love the leadership set up […]
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Date: January 17, 2025
Minimum Downside Met – Banks Teed Up Into Earnings
The S&P 500 met my minimum downside target for a low because it breached the December lows and closed below them as well. However, that doesn’t mean the bottom is in for sure. We just have to watch and see how the market behaves. This is not one of those bell-ringing, close your eyes and buy situation. I think that happens either later this quarter or later this year. In the chart below of the S&P 500 you can see […]
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Date: January 15, 2025
Stocks Break Down – Plenty Of Reasons To Support Bull Market
After the economy created 100,000 more jobs than expected, stocks and bonds decided that was bad news and promptly sold off. Makes sense, right? No, it really doesn’t although as I wrote about on Friday it is because the perception is now less help from the Fed. I have also been waiting to see if stocks poked to new highs first and then we could sell or if they fell below December’s low which would hasten a buying opportunity. The […]
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Date: January 12, 2025
New Jobs Soar – Markets May Not Like That
The government released the December employment report this morning. Surprisingly, the economy created 100,000 more new jobs than economists forecast. This is great news on the surface that the economy continues to hum along. It also speaks volumes to the lack of forecasting ability by economists with this very volatile monthly number. Here’s the problem. The current market regime is that good news is bad news because the Fed will provide less accommodation through lower rates. So while the economy […]
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Date: January 11, 2025
Bears Thwart Bulls To Own The Edge
The S&P 500 remains in the same trading range I have been discussing. On Monday I thought the bulls had the ball and would run to at least 6050 before the bears would start to fight. The bulls lost steam on the way and the bears pounded in a big way on Tuesday. We also saw more significant selling on Tuesday, especially in the tech sector. For now, we have to sit back and tolerate the frustration of not having […]
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Date: January 8, 2025
Who Sucked $330 Billion Out Of The Markets?
As we now have confirmation, the Santa Claus Rally failed in 2024. I will dig up the stats about the negativity for Q1 and report back shortly. Here is what I learned over the weekend from my friend Rob Hanna of Quantifiable Edges about the last week of December which is always ripe for massive portfolio games. It’s kinda wonky but I will give you the high level view. First, the Fed sold more than $30 billion of securities from […]
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Date: January 6, 2025
Looks Like The Grinch Won
While there is still one day left in the famed Santa Claus Rally (SCR), the S&P 500 would need to close above 5974. That’s a tall task given that it closed at 5869 last night. Assuming we don’t see a 100 point rally the SCR failure would usher in some bearish studies for Q1. I will touch on those next week. For sure, detractors will claim that the SCR failed last year and 2023 was a monster year so we […]
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Date: January 3, 2025
Santa Leaving Coal
The Santa Claus Rally (SCR) was teed up beautifully as I wrote last week. The markets had that one-day plunge from Jay Powell’s less than stellar press conference and the bears followed through the next day to a small degree. Then we had that emotional reversal 9 days ago on the largest expiration of derivatives of the year and I think of all-time. As we know from decades in the markets, just because something looks perfect it doesn’t mean that […]
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Date: December 30, 2024
