Fill Your Cars, Top Your Tanks
As we enter a new week and “things” are calming ever so slightly incrementally, crude oil is the story of the overnight as the front month, May, expires and is in total collapse. This is not what it seems on the surface. Yes, crude oil is down sharply again, but the 30% crash has more to do with structure of the commodity contract than a real crash. I need to choose my words carefully and not overwhelm you with lingo. […]
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Date: April 20, 2020
Dow 40,000 Coming But Rest of 2020 Likely Not A Layup
During the vast majority of the bull market from 2009 to 2020, I was always among the most bullish people giving forecasts. I always kidded my buddy Tony Dwyer, market strategist at Canaccord Genuity, that he was the second most bullish person in the industry. I fondly remember Joe Kernen of CNBC Squawk Box fame laughing when I called the Dow to go from 14,000 to 18,000. My 20,000 target was equally dismissed. In late 2016, our model first opened […]
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Date: April 17, 2020
Bulls & Bears Both See Opportunity
Since the most recent rally began on April 2nd, here has the succession of up and down days. Up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down. We have not seen back to back down days, just like we never saw back to back up during the entire one month crash. Obviously, the current situation is on a much smaller scale. Wednesday was a down day and as I mentioned on CNBC on Tuesday, it looks like stocks may have […]
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Date: April 16, 2020
Bulls Make Big Progress But a Little Overdone
The bulls had quite the holiday-shortened week last, showing their best performance since 1974 and 1931. Both of those years were in the midst of very strong bear markets if you care. Clearly, what’s going today is without precedent. As I continue to mention, this is the first time in world history where the government shut down our own economy and induced the sharpest contraction ever from a high. On Thursday, we learned that another 6.6 million Americans filed new […]
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Date: April 13, 2020
3 Scenarios for the Stock Market in Q2
After big declines in stocks, it pays to hear what the masses are thinking because they are usually wrong collectively. At the last major bottom in December 2018, most people were looking for a rally and a revisiting of the Christmas low. I was in that camp. As we know, stocks rocketed higher and never looked back all last year. There were plenty of confirmations in January that another decline was no longer in the cards. Today, we have a […]
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Date: April 8, 2020
Bulls Huge Surge into the Zone
The bulls came back from the weekend in much better health with the intent of damaging the bears. Lots of hope on the Covid numbers out of NYC as well as the hope for the economy to reopen sooner than later. While I do love optimism, I don’t see the economy restarting so quickly. I think way too many confuse the curve flattening or peaking with things get dramatically better. But definitely count me in for hope! Monday’s rally was […]
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Date: April 7, 2020
Bulls Looking to Open New Week with a Bang
Without jinxing anything, the weekend seemed on the “quieter” side regarding the news. While it remains bad, things didn’t accelerate to the downside so that’s something. After an abysmal jobs report on Friday, stocks were not down all that much after finishing with a flurry. As I always say, it’s not what the news actually is, but rather how stocks react. A 30%+ decline prices in a lot of the bad news we are seeing and what’s in store down […]
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Date: April 6, 2020
Unfathomable Job Losses
On Thursday, the government reported that 6 million people filed for first time unemployment benefits. The states are finally catching up and able to process the overwhelming numbers. On Friday, the February jobs report saw 700,000 jobs lost with the unemployment rate over 4%. This is the first negative report of jobs since late 2010. I and everyone expect subsequent reports to be equally bad or worse. For decades, I have said that regarding investing, it’s not what the news […]
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Date: April 3, 2020
First Bounce Fails. Bears in Control
In the last two posts I wrote about what I saw as the bulls having the ball early in the week with the bears taking over as the week proceeded. After a day and a half run by the bulls, they quickly gave up by lunch on Tuesday, allowing the bears to enjoy yet another 90% down day on Wednesday where more than 90% of the volume traded was in stocks going down on the day. As you know that […]
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Date: April 2, 2020
End of Month & Quarter. Bears Getting the Ball
To say this has been a long month would be the classic understatement! Four weeks ago, I was all packed and ready to head to Cabo San Lucas for a long weekend before going on to LA for work. Cabo has been on my bucket list since I used to watch The Love Boat on Saturday nights in the 1970s followed by Fantasy Island. I know. Kinda pathetic, but with only 13 channels, there wasn’t much on. From high to […]
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Date: March 31, 2020
Setting Up for the New Week
Last week was certainly one for the ages. It had everything a bull and bear would love and hate. March 23rd will go down as the internal or momentum low for this bear market, if that’s even the right term anymore. By internal low, I am referring to the bottom where the biggest swath of damage was done, where there was the most downside acceleration and panic. If there are subsequent lows in the coming weeks and months, I will […]
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Date: March 30, 2020
This is NOT 1931 But Still Too Many Looking for Easier Markets
The bull are back in town, at least from Tuesday through Thursday they were. If you even casually follow the markets, you have probably heard that it has been the biggest rally since 1931 after the sharpest decline in the least amount of days since, well, 1931. 1931 was in the heat of Great Depression part I (GDI) which is not an enviable analog. From 1929 to 1932, stocks lost 89% before rallying more than 400% into 1937 when Great […]
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Date: March 27, 2020
A Financial Strategy to Use Right Now
Tax Day Postponed As I wrote about the other day, I want to begin each update with something positive. As most people know, the IRS has extended tax filing day to July 15th. My read and that of the many CPAs I speak with is that’s across the board. If we are correct, that includes IRA, SEP and HSA contributions as well, along with paying tax owed and estimated taxes. When it comes to taxes, I always have mine done […]
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Date: March 27, 2020
Bulls Working on Three Straight
Bulls Working on Three Straight On Sunday, I discussed the tiniest of green shoots and the scenario for stock market low on Monday followed by a rally. As I said at the time and since, I think it is “A” low, but perhaps not “THE” low. It is certainly a start and I am glad that the market responded to what was diminishing downside acceleration. It looks like those geniuses in Congress will finally pass a massive $2 trillion stimulus […]
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Date: March 26, 2020
Not “THE” Bottom – 2008 Not a Good Guide
Well Tuesday was fun! At least for the bulls. Monday pretty much bottomed on schedule and we saw unprecedented and massive buying off the lows. It was really across the board with some eye popping numbers, like 93% of the shares traded went into stocks going up on the day. They were more than 2500 net issues trading higher than lower which is more than 10:1. In a vacuum some people would say that these are new bull market initiating […]
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Date: March 25, 2020
TRUE Shock and Awe – We Need MORE from the Government
Target.com Before I launch into another one of my “brief” updates, I want to share something good that can help everyone. While there has been major hoarding of paper towels, toilet paper and sanitizing products at the stores, I understand that supply chains are stocked and will continue to deliver to stores. Once people have their fill of toilet paper, it’s unlikely they will need more anytime soon. I just don’t get this. Why toilet paper? Why bottled water when […]
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Date: March 24, 2020
The Tiniest of Green Shoots – Monday Not Looking Pretty
I want to begin by hoping everyone is staying safe and taking the necessary precautions when venturing out. I spent part of my work weekend mapping out a series of updates and then writing content. As you all know, I am not known for brevity so I thought it would be more beneficial to create a series rather than one very long newsletter. After this piece, I have a short one with some financial planning tips and a big picture […]
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Date: March 22, 2020
Looking for a Green Shoot Within a Week
Stocks have not been up on back to back days since the market peaked one month ago. As I mentioned the other day, we have seen 6 independent days of widespread panic as you can see in the chart below. The very first sign of even a tradable rally will likely occur when we finally see stocks able to rally for two straight days. That opportunity should come next week at some point. Once we see some sort of low […]
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Date: March 20, 2020
More Panic in the Air. Looking for Back to Back Rally Days.
I was hoping to post a number of indicators showing historic levels of bearishness and oversold readings in the stock market. However, when I started creating the charts, I couldn’t stop and I just gave up after making 18. Perhaps, I will offer again in a future post. As has been the case with every post, these are truly history making times, in the financial markets, the economy, global health, etc. The word “generational” doesn’t seem to do it justice. […]
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Date: March 18, 2020
Corona Crash Continues. We WILL Get to the Other Side.
I wrote an update for yesterday, but I ended up hitting “save” instead of post and just realized it. Sorry about that. As I was emailing with a friend about analyzing what’s going, I said that short-term forecasts could literally be wrong before the ink dries on the paper. That’s how fast things are moving. I don’t want to jinx this (Lord knows we don’t need more problems), but I have been incredibly impressed that the electronic financial system seems […]
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Date: March 17, 2020
