Bulls Just Can’t Get Going
Something is clearly wrong with the bulls this month. With two reversal days out of three ending this past Monday, stocks should have been a lot higher than they are right now. Every single rally is being met with selling and that is a giant change in character. I have pounded and pounded the table that the bull market remains intact. And while there is still enough evidence to suggest that, I have to be open to the idea that […]
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Date: December 14, 2018
Looking Under the Hood of a Midday Waterfall Decline
This is going to be a little different kind of article that focuses on the minute to minute moves in the stock market. People often ask what happened or why something happened in the middle of the day which seemed rather large and out of the blue. Last week’s 800 point down Tuesday had two very obvious things occur so I am going to share. Below is a chart that I found very interesting. Each little red or green bar represents […]
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Date: December 14, 2018
Unusual Volatility
December and Q4 continue my longstanding theme of increased volatility. It’s definitely unusual for stocks to be this volatile this late in the year and without doing my homework, 2008 and 2000 come to mind. Of course, this looks nothing like 2008, but 2000 does have vaguely similar comparisons. Stocks are certainly pricing in a much more negative outcome than we have seen in a while. As I have said before, I definitely did not see the magnitude of the […]
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Date: December 13, 2018
Higher Rates Are to Blame. Lower Rates Are to Blame
Everywhere I turn, there seems to be another reason for this correction. Slowing in Europe, China falling off a cliff, tariffs, soaring long-term interest rates, yield curve inversion, deceleration in the U.S. economy. I have heard it all. The problem is that none of these reasons can easily be tied to the decline directly, nor should they be. And every once in a while, declines occur and the reasons are not apparent until well after the fact. Let’s look at […]
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Date: December 12, 2018
Lots of Sectors Resist Decline & Many Seasonal Stats Point Higher
The correction in stocks technically continued through last week although I remain firm in my opinion that this is all part of the bottoming process that began in October. With each passing week, more and more bulls turn to bears and I feel like I am almost alone in my forecast that new, all-time highs will be seen in 2019. While higher prices will be accompanied by unusually high volatility, I do not believe that a rising tide is going […]
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Date: December 11, 2018
Ugly & Ugly
On Monday, I wrote about the fireworks I saw coming at the open and not to get sucked into the media’s and pundits’ hysteria. Smart money would be selling not buying.Well, frankly, I wish I did some selling into that bull trap as Tuesday was downright ugly and this morning is looking even uglier to begin the day. I definitely did not see a decline of this magnitude coming. As I always say with outsized opens, where stocks close matters […]
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Date: December 6, 2018
Fireworks at the Open
No one was surprised that positive news came out of Trump’s meeting with Jinping over the weekend. That’s been his m.o. all along. And stocks are set to react in a big way, at least at the open, with the Dow looking up 400-500 points. After last week’s huge surge this just continues the dominance by the bulls as I have been writing about. For the Dow, the next big hurdle to clear is closing above 26,300 which was the […]
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Date: December 3, 2018
Whining & Crying Over Interest Rates
After Wednesday’s huge surge, stocks were quietly digesting on Thursday, somewhat as you would expect. With the initial blastoff from the bottom over which typically lifts all ships, especially those that were hit the hardest, it’s now time to start stalking emerging leadership. I am going to reserve judgement at this point since, frankly, I do not have strong conviction other than the transports are one sector acting very well. I want to see what the defensive groups do over […]
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Date: November 30, 2018
Bulls Drive Ahead But More Stocks Down
The bulls did a nice job on Monday and Tuesday after laying an egg during Thanksgiving week. I don’t think Wednesday will be quite as easy during the afternoon. While the major stock market indices scored gains on Tuesday, there were almost 700 more stocks going down than up. That’s not exactly the pillar of strength which leads to immediate gains. Frankly, it’s a little disappointing. The vast majority of our work turned positive at the end of last week […]
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Date: November 28, 2018
The Makings of the Bottom
Coming back from being out of the office for over a week is never easy although I received a few emails doubting I was actually away since I sent so many updates last week. It’s not that hard when your kids like to sleep in and you don’t. I got a lot done before any of them, including my wife, starting stirring in the morning. Stocks came back from the Thanksgiving feast with the bulls firmly in charge early on. […]
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Date: November 26, 2018
