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Category: Paul’s Insights

Something for the Bears to Hang their Hats on

The Dow hit yet another all time high today and there hasn’t been a 10%+ correction in 35 months. When stocks opened sharply lower on July 10th, the bears came roaring out of hibernation calling for everything from a 10% correction to the end of the bull market. It was a sea of ugly red prices on my screen due to Portuguese bank worries, and weak China data. That decline didn’t even last a full day. Nor did the decline […]   Read More
Date: July 16, 2014

Bears Out of Hibernation

Stocks open the day with the largest down opening in some time due to Portuguese bank problems, slowing Eurozone concerns and less than stellar data out of China. As hard to believe as it is, I have already seen a few articles calling this the beginning of a new bear market. Geez, how many time have we heard that over the past 64 months! What we are seeing now is a routine, healthy and normal 3-7% pullback. Short-term downside risk […]   Read More
Date: July 10, 2014

No Inflation Seen in Energy Prices

With the various global tensions impacting the energy market, I thought it was appropriate to write a few articles about crude oil and how viewing different time horizons yield very different opinions. This is part I to be followed by part II next week. To begin with, energy and more specifically, crude oil, has an enormous impact on the global economy. From common sense items like heating our homes and powering our cars to more derivative things like chemicals and […]   Read More
Date: July 8, 2014

Bull Market’s Peak

The stock market hits the new week with a tiny headwind from post holiday seasonality. Last Thursday’s solid employment report finally got at least some bulls to celebrate, but it’s still very muted. At Dow 17,000 after a 10,000 point rally in the market, you would think that the majority would be in a good mood, even giddy. But that’s just not the case. Before the bull market ends, history suggests a 10%+ correction, which we haven’t seen yet. And […]   Read More
Date: July 7, 2014

Dow 18,000 Next as Twitter, Investors, Advisors and Media Root for Bears

Small Caps Play Catch Up in BIG Way When we last left off, the major stock market indices were all playing nicely together except for the small cap Russell 2000 which had seen a full fledged 10% correction, but was beginning to bounce. The performance of that one index was a key ingredient to the bears’ negative stance on the market. At that time, here and on the blog, I dismissed the Russell’s warning and went so far as to […]   Read More
Date: July 7, 2014

Squawk Box @ 6:05am Monday

Looking forward to joining Joe, Becky and Andrew at 6:05am on Monday discussing the Dow hitting my 17,000 target (18K is next), Thursday’s solid employment report and what’s in store for the second half of 2014. If you would like to be notified by email when a new post is made here, please sign up, HERE.   Read More
Date: July 6, 2014

Tug O’ War Continues

Last week, I had the pleasure of joining the Squawk Box gang for some early morning Fed and market talk. It was a good discussion and I always enjoy when Joe leads the segment. At the end, he went off on a World Cup tangent but before cutting away, I had to throw out “Dow is going to 18,000”, which stopped that conversation dead in its tracks as the triumvirate quickly jumped on that. You can click here for the […]   Read More
Date: June 23, 2014

Much Ado About Nothing from Yellen & Fed Today

My how time flies… It’s Fed decision day again with Janet Yellen set to announce another $10 billion cut from bond purchases, keeping the FOMC on pace to wind down QE Unlimited later this year. After the 2pm announcement, Ms. Yellen will head over to the always entertaining (NOT) press conference. One thing I am sure of is that the Fed chair will not commit another rookie, foot in mouth, Joe Biden esque’ gaffe by committing to a specific timeline […]   Read More
Date: June 18, 2014

Short-Term Pullback Continues

Stocks head in to the new week with the bears in control over the very short-term. That’s it. Not the intermediate-term and certainly not the long-term. The major indices peaked last Monday and look like they are digesting the recent gains in very orderly fashion. More all time highs should follow when this pullback concludes. The next rally is the one I would pay particularly close attention to, especially in the small caps. The Russell 2000 is SUPPOSED to hit […]   Read More
Date: June 16, 2014

Refuting the Bears

Bears will point to overly bullish sentiment readings and anemic volume as reasons to be wary of “The Big One” or bull market ending. They are absolutely correct regarding the sentiment surveys, but this story has been seen before. And sentiment is almost always much frothier than the high positive readings of today. Sometimes, a correction unfolds while other times the market enters a trading range. And in outlier cases, every once in a long while, stocks begin to melt […]   Read More
Date: June 13, 2014