Downside Set Up & Small Caps
It has been a quiet week for stocks, but you would have concluded that had you listened to all of newly minted geopolitical experts calling for WWIII, oil to $150 and risk assets crashing. Once again, managing money by using global events is a fool’s errand, not that those events won’t impact. It’s just that the world is always, always, always a volatile place. Iran, Russia, China, Gaza, COVID. There is always something. When investors make emotional decisions based on […]
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Date: June 20, 2025
***Special Fed Meeting Update – Still Asleep And Fighting Wrong Battle***
It’s FOMC (Fed) day. The stock market model calls for plus or minus 0.50% until 2pm and then a rally. The likelihood of success has risen because of the recent weakness. And there is also a potential set up for weakness depending on how stocks react. Jay Powell and the FOMC should reduce interest rates by 1/4%. I said the same thing in March as well as May. Just like they were embarrassingly wrong in waiting to hike rates when […]
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Date: June 18, 2025
Stocks Still On Track For All-Time Highs
Greetings from 35,000! A quick trip to Gainesville, FL and Athens, GA. I hope everyone had a great Father’s Day weekend. Mine was full of family, golf and well, more golf. The U.S. Open was one of the best finishes ever with so many pros experiencing despair amidst a few small pockets of jubilation. For most of the tournament I never thought JJ Spaun would even finish in the top 10. And poor Sam Burns. Hard to come back from […]
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Date: June 16, 2025
Market Needed An Excuse To Pull Back – Israel Provided It
I have recently written about the stock market rallying very far and very fast. A pullback was due. The Volatility Index (VIX) was one clue that some weakness was imminent as it was up the past two days without stocks being down. You may have to squint, but look at the far right side of the chart below to see what I mean. With Israel attacking Iran on Thursday night, the excuse for lower prices came. A 2-4% pullback would […]
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Date: June 13, 2025
Dumb Money Finally Buying Stocks
Smart money usually is early to the rally and then slowly reduces exposure as the dumb money throws in the bearish towel and starts to embrace the market strength. This happens over months and quarters. Rinse and repeat. During the tariff tantrum in early April I noticed that big money was selling at any price while small money was patiently buying the plunge in what was a role reversal. The stock market has come very far and very fast from […]
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Date: June 11, 2025
Goldilocks Came – Media Labeled “Weak” and “Stronger”
On Friday, I offered that an employment report with 125,000 to 150,000 new jobs created in May would be Goldilocks, not too hot and and not too cold. The government reported that the economy created 139,000 new jobs in May, slightly more than expected. Wages also grew more than expected. On the surface this was a solid number given the length of the recovery. However, April and March saw significant downward revisions by 30,000 and 65,000 respectively. Purely speculating, that […]
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Date: June 9, 2025
Geopolitical Nonsense
Thursday was not a quiet day on the news front. Elon Musk fired a shot across the bow and President Trump took the bait, hook, line and sinker to mix metaphors. The market responded by selling Tesla very hard which reversed early gains in the NASDAQ 100 and S&P 500. Think you can guess my next comment? Ignore geopolitical nonsense. Follow the data. The stock market was poised to pullback. The S&P 500 got within a whisker of 6000 which […]
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Date: June 6, 2025
All-Time Highs Already? – Semis Boosting Market
The S&P 500 is now only 3% from all-time highs. Just two months ago the masses were talking about a repeat of the COVID crash or 2008. Few wanted to listen to hugely bullish side of the ledger that I was selling. People laughed when I suggested new highs were coming in late Q4 or early 2026. My timing may be off, but no one can question my bullishness. All the geopolitical nonsense chatter clouded some investors’ thinking into selling […]
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Date: June 4, 2025
Bulls In Charge to Begin June But Greed Is Back
Almost every day in January my wife commented how January is the longest month of the year. It’s as if time slows down. The holidays are over and sunlight is at a minimum. She hates when I don’t even bother to lift the shades in the bedroom. I felt like May was an equally long month. The weather was so crummy in CT. It was like March and November. That all changes as the markets begin June with the bulls […]
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Date: June 2, 2025
The Set Up For A Pullback – Even Nvidia Can’t Help
6 weeks ago, markets would have sold off significantly had President Trump attacked the Chinese regarding violating their trade agreement with the U.S. This morning, stocks are down marginally in the pre-market. Folks can argue that the economic news with cooler inflation and a “miraculously” shrinking trade deficit are more important. And that’s been my point exactly all year. I have hammered that with each successive social media post and press conference regarding tariffs, the markets are becoming more and […]
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Date: May 30, 2025
