Don the Crash Helmets! It’s Bloody and Ugly Out There!!
By now, everyone knows that the Dow Jones Industrials fell by 1000 points last week, including a 531 point down day to close the week. More selling lies ahead in the short-term. It’s getting ugly. There’s blood in the streets. Sell what you can not what you want. Margin calls are coming. Maximum pain thresholds are being hit for the individual investor. Panic is here! Before I opine on what it means, let’s put it all in perspective. 531 points […]
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Date: August 24, 2015
My Oh My… The Music Has Stopped
If you listen to the media or have an active Twitter feed about the markets, you would think stocks have literally collapsed into the depths of a bear market. We MUST be down at least 10-15%! Yet as I type this, the S&P 500 has pulled back all of 6%. It’s a little more than half way to the 10% correction level.The Dow hit my initial downside target of sub 17,000 and the S&P 500 is on its way to […]
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Date: August 21, 2015
Semis & NASDAQ 100 at Odds
On Tuesday, the Semiconductor Index as well as its ETF counterparts hit new lows for 2015. This is important for two main reasons. First, historically, as go the semis, so goes the NASDAQ. And as goes the NASDAQ, so goes the broad stock market. It is an intermediate to long-term concern that the semis are more than just struggling. Bull moves typically do not continue without support from the semis. Below you can see the NASDAQ 100 which is anything […]
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Date: August 19, 2015
U.S. Recession Part II – Off the Beaten Path
Continuing the theme of recession, two of my favorite off the beaten path economic indicators are below. The first is the Restaurant Performance Index, which essentially measures the health of the average consumer rather than the Wall Street executive spending $1000+ per couple at Masa or Per Se in New York City. You can see on the left side of the chart that this index steadily weakened well before the crisis hit and was solidly below the 100 level which […]
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Date: August 19, 2015
U.S. Possible Recession Part I – The Consumer
There has been renewed chatter lately about the U.S. economy being on the verge of recession. It’s not as loud as we (wrongly) heard in 2011, but it’s definitely growing. I vividly remember the Economic Cycle Research Institute doing interviews on CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg and just about every major financial website, pounding the table that there was almost 100% chance of recession in 2011 and their indicators were “never” wrong. “Never” is one of those words I don’t typically […]
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Date: August 17, 2015
China Devalues – A Look at Currencies
After a good close last Friday and strong stock market showing on Monday, the bulls hard a tough day on Tuesday as China surprised the markets by devaluing their currency, the renminbi or RMB, overnight in an effort to spur on exports. Japan has been trying to do this for several years by massive amounts of money printing. For most of the world, the free market sets the various exchange rates, but a few countries set their own exchange rates, which can […]
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Date: August 14, 2015
Bulls Want to Fight
After a clear loss to the bears last week, the bulls closed Friday well off the worst levels of the day and closer to the highs. That price behavior usually leads to some follow through buying the next day. Looking at the five major stock market indices, they look very different, which is not normal. The Dow and the Russell 2000 oddly look the most similar with the S&P 500 and S&P 400 together. The NASDAQ 100 has the most […]
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Date: August 10, 2015
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
