Lines in the Sand
The bulls are back to pressing against the upper end of the short-term trading range and should attempt to close above those lines in the sand. On the Dow, the level is 17975 on a closing basis while it’s 2073 on the S&P 500. Both are just a one day rally away. The S&P 400 already saw all time highs last week while the Russell 2000, long left for dead by the market, has a line in the sand at […]
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Date: February 11, 2015
Bulls Trying to Step on Bears’ Throats
Earlier this week, I spelled out three possible scenarios for stocks with one very bullish, one mildly bullish and one bearish. I gave most weight to the mildly bullish one and least weight to the bearish one. Right now, stocks are marching more towards the very bullish scenario although the Dow breached the lows I had discussed in the mildly bullish scenario. Looking at the five major indices, the Dow needs to close above 17,850 to set up a run […]
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Date: February 5, 2015
Bears Pulling a Pete Carroll?
The bears began Monday’s trading with the ball, seemingly just needing to breach the lows to force a wave of technical selling. It shouldn’t have been that difficult. After multiple intra-day reversals by the bulls stocks ended sharply higher on decent internals. While that all looks very nice and neat on a chart, I would have still preferred to see a clear breach of all recent key lows by at least the majority of the major indices. All we saw […]
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Date: February 3, 2015
Bears Trying to Run It In
Congratulations to the New England Patriots! I didn’t root for you, but a win is a win, even in the face of the single worst offensive play called in the history of big game sports. Stocks begin the week with the bears in mild control even following Thursday’s reversal. Early this week should be very key to see which way the short-term winds blow. On the S&P 500 and its weaker cousin, the Dow, price has declined to the same […]
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Date: February 2, 2015
Heading into the Weekend
Some of the pop in volatility this week is starting to be wrung out as the markets close the week. On Thursday we saw a nice reversal across the board, however the internal numbers were nothing to write home about. Additionally, I would have much preferred to see the lows from at 2015, if not December 2014 breached before the reversal took hold. That would have given a good flush to weak handed holders. For now, the major indices remain […]
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Date: January 30, 2015
Fed Day Model and Trend
The FOMC concludes their two day meeting today, surviving the “epic” and “historic” blizzard. The model for the trading day is to see stocks in a plus or minus range of 0.50%, but generally we see mildly rising prices until 2pm and then increased volatility with an upward bias to the close. The Fed trend is to be long the stock market from yesterday’s close to today’s close based on a variety of historical factors. That trend has an accuracy […]
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Date: January 28, 2015
Bears to Pounce at the Open
Stocks look to open sharply lower this morning on a variety of news events, although none that are singularly that bad. Greece is in the headlines yet again and frankly, if they are going to exit, let’s just get it over with. Their economy and market is not even a rounding error in the grand scheme of things, but a Grexit will open the door to the southern European countries saber rattling about an exit if they are not bailed […]
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Date: January 27, 2015
Lots of News This Week
While last week was certainly news filled, this week will be even busier as the northeast plans for another snowmageddon. At the bus stop this morning, our new neighbors who are from Dublin talked about the more than 10 cases of water they bought. When I stopped laughing, I asked them what they planned to do with all that water. And while they were at it, I asked them if they also bought canned goods and ammo! That conversation gave […]
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Date: January 27, 2015
Draghi & ECB Deliver
It’s a very busy week for the markets and economy coming off the ECB’s long anticipated announcement of Euro QE last week. On the one hand I thought it was smart to leak the $50B euros per month plan so that markets could digest it ahead of the official statement. It was also a great move to then exceed the number that was leaked by $10B euros. On the other hand, I am not in favor of this piecemeal approach […]
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Date: January 26, 2015
7 Years Ago
As I drove home from Vermont today on Martin Luther King Day, I thought about past MLK Days, which is something I would normally do to pass the time away. My two boys were in the back seat napping and listening to music and I had Sirius on in the background. I vividly recall MLK Day 1994 as it was the single coldest day I have ever skied at Mount Snow, -25F with 20 mph winds that made it feel […]
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Date: January 20, 2015
