Menu

Category: Paul’s Insights

Stocks Tired But No Reason to Sell Just Yet

Stocks are now in one of the most seasonally strong times of year within one of the most seasonally strong times of year. The big question is whether the market has used up most of the available fuel and needs a break first. Certainly, the last few days have seen a mild pullback. It looks like the bears have a tiny bit of work left to do on the downside. However, those looking for any significant price damage during the […]   Read More
Date: December 19, 2016

Fed to Hike Rates But All Not Well

Model for the Day As with every Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement day, there is a model for the stock market to follow pre and post announcement. Certain environments have very strong tendencies while others do not. Two meetings ago was one of the rare times where the models strongly called for a rally on statement which was correct as well as a decline a few days later which was also correct. Today, the upside edge is just outside […]   Read More
Date: December 14, 2016

Irrational Exuberance

This past weekend was the first official ski weekend for my youngest son and me. And boy was it cold in Vermont! But with mid-winter conditions, it was hard not to overdo it. I overdid it and now I am in a world of pain. Neck, back, quads, calves, fingers. Anyway, as you can imagine, I am usually a chatty one on the lift. Since we typically ride the quad or 6 pack, we are usually with strangers. When people […]   Read More
Date: December 12, 2016

Bulls Continue to Trample Ahead

On Wednesday, I gave a higher level overview of how the stock market is behaving along with the leadership and some key indicators. Nothing has really changed. Almost everything is severely overbought, but they can still become even more overbought. Pullbacks through year-end should be shallow and no more than 2-3%, lasting just a few days. Another piece of good news for the longevity of the bull market came this week. The NYSE Advance/Decline Line scored an all-time high. That […]   Read More
Date: December 9, 2016

Window for Decline Almost Closed

For the past three weeks, our models have been defensive regarding the stock market after the first week’s post-election surge. I often say that when certain conditions are present, a “window of opportunity” opens for a stock market decline. The longer time passes without a decline, the more likely the window will close. Today, the window is starting to close and I imagine that by two weeks from today, it will be fully closed, modest decline or not. The  Dow, […]   Read More
Date: December 7, 2016

Yahoo Finance Today & Quick Update

I am excited to join the good folks at Yahoo Finance for their live show today at noon. To watch, go to finance.yahoo.com and you should see the show streaming. While so many people fretted over the election in Italy, the global financial markets don’t really seem to care this morning with the bulls in charge. Although December is a very positive time for U.S. stocks, it’s backloaded, meaning that the second half of the month is much more powerful […]   Read More
Date: December 5, 2016

1991 & 1992 Offering Good Clues Too

Yesterday, I wrote about the analog with 1980. If I change my research parameters from presidential elections to similar price behavior during any year, I come up with a very different analog. The current market is first below and you can see the BREXIT bottom in the middle, followed by the big summer rally and period of digestion before the current rally began on the right side. In 1991, we saw a massive rally after the U.S. and its allies […]   Read More
Date: December 1, 2016

1980 a Good Analog for 2016

Since the election the financial media and pundits have been fascinated with labeling the stock market’s strong run as The Trump Rally. I get it. And it’s really only a silly name anyway. However, the market isn’t rallying just because Donald Trump was elected. If the Senate went blue, I would argue that we would seen a muted response. Equally, if not more important, is the fact that the GOP now controls Congress and similar to how the government looked […]   Read More
Date: November 30, 2016

Stock Market Yawning at Recount

After a small gain on Wednesday, the seasonality bulls got their work done on Friday as the strong trend held to form. Without any weakness leading into that trend, it made it too tough for me to play it. However, I did tweet on Friday that taking a small short position at the close for seasonal weakness on Monday seemed like a better risk/reward play. Heading into the new week, we have to be on the lookout for the typical […]   Read More
Date: November 28, 2016

Seasonals Favor Bulls into Weekend

Today and Friday are well known and widely followed seasonally strong days for stocks. That doesn’t mean we should just blindly buy and hope things work out. Stocks have been almost straight up since the election so you can certainly argue that a lot of fuel has been used up, including the last two days. As I mentioned on Monday, if the stock market was down on Tuesday I would have wanted to be long on Wednesday and Friday. That’s […]   Read More
Date: November 23, 2016