Anatomy of The Stock Market Crashes of 1929 & 1987. Can It Happen Today?
Today is the 30th anniversary of the stock crash of 1987. All week long there has been a stream of recountings, anecdotes and comparisons to today’s market. While I love nostalgia as much as anyone, there are almost no valid comparisons to 1987 and it’s pretty much a waste of time to take that argument. Writers, analysts and investors who insist that stocks are about to crash like 1987 are either perma-bears who have been wrong for the past 8 […]
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Date: October 19, 2017
Banks & Transports Still Tired. Modest Pullback Here.
Last Friday, I discussed what appeared to be tired behavior in the banks as they were selling off on good earnings news after rallying sharply into earnings season. Citigroup and JP Morgan were the examples. This morning, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley beat earnings expectations, yet reaction has been muted with the former opening sharply higher and then selling off while the latter is hanging tight. I would not be surprised to see Morgan Stanley buck the trend in the […]
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Date: October 17, 2017
Banks Selling the News. Transport Close By
Earnings season is now in full swing which means that every morning. pre-market, you will find a slew of companies reporting as well as offering guidance or forecasts about the future. That creates a much higher level of single stock and sometimes single sector overnight risk. Right now, the major banks are reporting, after experiencing a near vertical ascent into Q3 quarter end. The last time I wrote a specific article about the banking sector, it had just touched a […]
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Date: October 13, 2017
3 Reasons Stocks Will Peak Right Now
Good Monday Morning! Huge weekend if you are a sports fan although the decision making of my Yankees’ and Cowboys’ manager and coach likely just ended their seasons. At that level, the margin for blunders is razor thin and both Girardi (4 stupid decisions in 40 min) and Garrett (one giant brain freeze) cost their teams. While I have never been in their shoes, it’s the same thing I face each and every market day. Over the past 29 years, […]
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Date: October 9, 2017
Three Big Short-Term Changes Today
Looking at the economic news of the day, jobs created in September actually declined for the first time since 2011. On the surface, that would be shockingly disappointing and brings in calls for recession. However, all of the drop from the expected 100,000 created will be attributed to the hurricanes. The unemployment rate surprisingly fell to 4.2% from the expected 4.4%. Until the economies in Texas and Florida get back to somewhat normal behavior, job numbers are going to be […]
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Date: October 6, 2017
Beware of October in Years Ending in “7”
While I often write about seasonality, in the grand scheme of things, it’s really only a slight head or tailwind. For those who do not know what seasonality is, it is using a period of time in history to see what trends have occurred the majority of the time. For instance, Sell in May and Go Away, is a seasonal trend for stocks to be weaker from May through October and stronger the rest of the year. The day before […]
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Date: October 2, 2017
Signs Point Higher this Week
After a solid end to September and Q3, stocks open the new day, week, month and quarter flirting with all-time highs. Of the major indices, only the NASDAQ 100 isn’t there, but I expect to see that achievement this week. When I think of October, Reggie Jackson’s three home run game in 1977 comes to mind along with Halloween, fall foliage and stock market crashes. As I already wrote about, while October is known for huge market swings, 2017 is […]
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Date: October 2, 2017
The Legend of October
A month ago, I wrote an article debunking the theory that September was always a poor month for the stock market. You can re-read it HERE. Essentially, September’s ire was very much dependent on how price came into the month. While the average return since 1928 has been -1.1%, coming into September 2017, price action suggested an up month with an average price of +0.50%. As I write this, the S&P 500 is ahead by 1.5% on the final day of […]
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Date: October 2, 2017
Stocks on Solid Footing Heading into Q4
Since late July, my overall theme has been one of pause to refresh with a mild pullback as the five major stock market indices were certainly not all in gear to the upside. Two months later, with the S&P 400 and Russell 2000 recently surging, they are all getting closer together. That behavior comes at the expense of the NASDAQ 100 peaking earlier this month and moving sideways for the others to catch up. I fully expect November and December […]
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Date: September 29, 2017
Trump, Merkel & Tech
Stocks begin the week with a mixed bag of news. President Trump made for a rough weekend with his comments regarding the NFL and player protests as well as saber rattling with North Korea. In Europe, Angela Merkel’s party won the election for the fourth time and she is the presumptive Chancellor yet again. For two years, I have been calling the German election the single biggest geopolitical event since the Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1999, officially creating the […]
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Date: September 25, 2017
