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Category: Paul’s Insights

Window of Opportunity Opening for a Broad Stock Market Decline

On Wednesday, for those were able to read to the end of the update, I did something I haven’t done in a while, broach the idea that stocks could could go down for more than a brief pullback. I continue to warm to that idea. Let’s start with the top chart below which is 10 and 20 day average of the NASDAQ volume versus NYSE volume. You can see that since the bull market launched on March 23rd, there has […]   Read More
Date: July 17, 2020

Sea Change? Dow Industrials Exploding Higher

On Monday, I offered some comments about the pathetic banks into earnings. JP Morgan was first and they got some love. Goldman was this morning and they should get even more love. The call wasn’t that difficult as sentiment was just so negative and fearful. In almost every post over the last two plus months I have separated the major stock market indices away from the NASDAQ 100 which was behaving very idiosyncratically. Over the past few sessions, there has […]   Read More
Date: July 15, 2020

Opportunities in the Financials

Q2 earnings season begins this week with the much maligned financial sector up first. I think there is opportunity here as the sector has been straight down since its peak on June 8th. While I would love to see one  more selloff to new July lows on the first round of reports, I recognize that being too cute forces you to miss the boat sometimes. I would hate to see great reports and the stocks take off right away. That […]   Read More
Date: July 13, 2020

Is the NASDAQ 100 the New Dotcom Bubble?

Another day, another surge by the NASDAQ 100 without the rest of the indices joining the party. You know the few stocks. Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Nvidia, Facebook, Google and a few more. The Dow Industrials, S&P 500, S&P 400 and Russell 2000 are not behaving well. This is not, not, not 1999 and the Dotcom Bubble, but, but, but this is still dangerous behavior that can lead to consequences tomorrow, next month or next year.  Remember, markets can stay […]   Read More
Date: July 10, 2020

It’s All About The NASDAQ 100

On Monday it was interesting that so many in the media spent much of the day focused on the NASDAQ 100 and those few behemoth stocks within that index which seem to only go up. You know the ones. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Tesla, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia and a few others. First, it was all about how anyone could or should own anything else. Then it was comparing them to the Dotcom era. They were wrong on both counts. As […]   Read More
Date: July 8, 2020

Young Bull Market Not the Rising Tide Lifting All Ships

I hope you had an enjoyable and peaceful July 4th holiday. Living in CT, it definitely lacked the “feel” of traditional July 4th weekends. No town fireworks. No big gatherings. Nothing special. Last week was one for the bulls as they fought off early weakness and ran higher right to the June employment report which was another record setting shocker on the upside. I actually thought there would be some mildly lower revisions from that eye popper a month ago. […]   Read More
Date: July 6, 2020

Portfolio Games Over But All is Not Well in Hooville

The end of the month, quarter and first half of 2020 are now in the books. Portfolio managers played their usual games on Tuesday, especially in the final 15 minutes of trading where stocks spiked and immediately fell. While illegal, it is beyond hard to prove that a manager was “painting the tape” or trying to mark up the portfolio while other folks sold garbage they didn’t want to show on the books and bought what has worked during the […]   Read More
Date: July 1, 2020

Stocks Could Bounce But Better Buy at Lower Levels

As was the theme for last week, stocks closed lower on Friday and for the week. Some of the headwinds I wrote about have dissipated and the big, annual rebalance in the Russell indices was completed on Friday’s close. While I don’t think the bulls are ready to reassert themselves for a run to new highs, the market is certainly oversold on the short-term and could support a little bounce.  Heading into the holiday-shortened week, one of my favorite weeks […]   Read More
Date: June 29, 2020

Trading Range Continues. Puckering Up for Dow 25,000

The theme for the week has been one of caution, not because of the Coronavirus, but because after the four, big quarterly options expiration, the stock market usually faces a headwind. Add on top of that, we have a massive quarterly rebalance out of stocks and into bonds to the tune of somewhere between $100 and $200 billion. And then there is that “little” thing called the annual Russell rebalance which takes place today at the close. There have been […]   Read More
Date: June 26, 2020

The Week Continues to Unfold as Expected

On Monday I wrote about the headwinds facing the stock market this week in https://investfortomorrow.com/blog/this-week-is-usually-down/. We have post-options expiration and end of quarter during an uptrend. Yesterday, I wrote this in an email. “On top of that we have the polar opposite quarterly rebalancing that we had in March when stocks had sold off so much that more than $100 billion had to be purchased in stocks at quarter’s end by institutions following a set asset allocation, like 60/40. With […]   Read More
Date: June 24, 2020