And the Tea Leaves Were Right
Earlier this week, after weeks and almost months of continuous concerns about the bulls’ ability to step up, I wrote about the short-term tea leaves indicating a rally beginning by Tuesday or Wednesday. The bulls definitely did their part so far this week with the small and mid cap indices scoring all-time highs and the NASDAQ 100 close to fresh highs. The Dow and the S&P 500 have rallied, but are still being dragged up by their counterparts. Software, consumer […]
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Date: June 19, 2015
Fed Statement Day Trend
Once again, the markets have come to the day when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) releases their statement regarding interest rates and their economic forecast. Today, we also get to hear from Janet Yellen during the post meeting press conference. What to expect? Absolutely nothing on the interest rate front. As I have said before every meeting since rates went to essentially 0%, the Fed is not going to raise rates today. That day will wrongly come sooner […]
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Date: June 17, 2015
Short-Term Tea Leaves Say Bulls About to Step Up
The stock market remains on the defensive as I have written about for some time, not that this is a repeat of 2008 or even 2011. It’s not even your garden variety 10%+ correction. Stocks remain in the range they have been in for most of 2015. From a bullish perspective, it’s a good intermediate-term sign that after the huge run up we have seen, the bears can’t even muster a 10% correction. From the bearish perspective, stocks have stalled […]
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Date: June 16, 2015
Selling the Bounce
Let’s start with my conclusion and then work backwards. Nothing has changed over the past few days, weeks and even months. I still view stocks positively the farther out you go. The short-term remains murky, uncertain, questionable and any other adjective that is less than flat out bullish. One of my chief concerns, sentiment, has begun to reset itself at least to neutral from the overly enthusiastic category. Sentiment surveys have improved as have the put/call ratios in the options […]
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Date: June 10, 2015
Don’t Believe the Negative GDP Print
Short and sweet as I am traveling today. Last Friday, the government reported that Q1 economic output contracted by 0.70%. To the casual observer, that smells awfully close to the accepted definition of recession, two straight quarters of negative GDP growth. Stocks barely reacted on Friday and I attribute the weakness to geopolitical news in Europe. The first quarter has been the worst GDP as far back as the eye can see. The government’s seasonally adjusted data needs to be […]
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Date: June 1, 2015
Bulls Not Ready to Surge Just Yet
In what seems to be the trend for most of 2015, price breakouts above previous high points have largely been rejected. While that’s not to say that the bears have come in and taken control over the intermediate-term, we have seen small pullbacks until the bulls get ready to step up again. Eventually, as I have written about all along, this three or six month trading range will resolve itself to the upside; it just doesn’t look like it’s right […]
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Date: May 21, 2015
American Pharaoh Begins the Week at the Highs
The bulls begin the new week a little higher than this time last week and within striking distance of all-time highs in the Dow, S&P 500 and S&P 400. Not a single thing has changed in my bullish intermediate and long-term outlook. The stock market should continue higher on its way to Dow 20,000 with periodic bouts of weakness to keep everyone honest. As I have been writing about since early 2012, any and all pullbacks should be viewed as […]
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Date: May 18, 2015
Portfolio Impact from Jobs Report
The question now for portfolio managers like myself is, “does one good employment report turn the tide?” Since I already mentioned that I all but dismissed the poor Q1 GDP number and I am not giving much weight to the weak March employment, I do believe that Friday’s report is the start of the next upward swing in our frustrating but positive post financial crisis recovery. With that, the intermediate-term outlook for stocks has brightened for many although unchanged from […]
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Date: May 13, 2015
April Employment Report Turns the Tide
One of my long held beliefs is that it really doesn’t matter what the news is, only how the markets react. In almost 27 years of trading, investing and watching, I have seen it too many where the news is so powerful in one direction, yet the market reaction is the exact opposite. Hence, the terms “buy the rumor, sell the news” or “sell the rumor, buy the news”. And sometimes, the news is as expected, yet markets see a […]
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Date: May 12, 2015
Tug O’ War Continues
Like a seesaw or maybe a pinball machine, the major stock market indices continue to bounce from the low end of the trading range to the upper end and back. Remember, that for the past month or so, I have written about the short-term looking somewhat murky, but the intermediate and long-term remain solid. Market pullbacks come in two forms. The first is that price declines somewhat sharply and quickly, which shakes out some of the weak handed holders. The […]
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Date: May 6, 2015
Apple’s Good Earnings Impacting Market
Earlier this week, Apple released a very solid earnings report beating analysts estimates on the top and bottom line, meaning the company had more revenue and profits than forecast. On the surface that should be a good thing and intuitively, you would think a boon to the stock. Apple opened at fresh all-time highs on Tuesday only to sell off immediately and close in the lower end of its daily range. Data miners have uncovered a solid trend that […]
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Date: April 30, 2015
Fed Statement Day
Today ends the Fed’s two day meeting with no action taken. Analysts will parse that statement for clues about a possible September rate hike, but as I have said for a long time, the Fed should absolutely not raise rates anytime soon. Oil is tame. Inflation is non-existent. Our economy is mediocre at best. Europe is teetering and Japan is, well, Japan. Raising rates to have some ammunition for the future is the single most absurd argument I can recall. […]
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Date: April 29, 2015
Short-Term Murkiness Continues
While I continue to be intermediate and long-term positive on the stock market, there remains a small cloud over the markets in the short-term. That usually means a pullback, which equals weakness to the tune of 3-7%. Market sentiment has become slightly less bullish, but not to the degree where I believe the next launch to all-time highs can begin. Recent price action shows the S&P 500, S&P 400 and NASDAQ 100 poking to all-time highs and then being rejected […]
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Date: April 28, 2015
Bears Having Their Day
Not even half a day of weakness and talk of the big C is out. The dreaded correction! It’s amazing that after a 73 month secular bull market, it’s still the most hated and disavowed bull ever. Yes, it’s now been 42 months since the last 10% correction, but markets don’t fall just because of age. Corrections occur to repair breaks and right now, there aren’t enough things broken to warrant a full fledged correction. The most glaring concern is […]
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Date: April 17, 2015
Only Sentiment Holding Back Bulls
The markets begin a new week with a huge stream of earnings on tap including Intel, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The European Central Bank is scheduled to meet and there are a number of important economic releases with inflation being front and center. On Friday, it’s April options expiration. The major indices look neutral to positive as the S&P 400 and Russell 2000 are a whisker away from all-time highs while the S&P 500, NASDAQ 100 and Dow are […]
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Date: April 13, 2015
Dow Theory Warnings Continue
Several months ago, I wrote back to back articles about the Dow Theory trend change. You can view them below. http://www.investfortomorrow.com/newsletter/CurrentStreet$marts20141029.pdf http://www.investfortomorrow.com/newsletter/CurrentStreet$marts20141103.pdf Simply put, this analysis holds that the Dow Jones Industrials and Transports should move in lock step to confirm each intermediate-term move in the stock market. When one index see a relative new high, so should the other. The opposite is true at lows. When one index diverges from the other, it is a possible sign of a […]
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Date: April 6, 2015
Q2 Begins Where Q1 Left Off
I hope you all enjoyed April Fool’s Day. I know I definitely did and the emails, calls and texts continue rolling in. Even the media called for an interview about my new gig! 🙂 The first quarter and the month of March rolled in like a bear and both rolled out like a bear, meaning that the bears had the upper hand at least in the short-term. During the middle of the quarter, the bulls were in firm control. The […]
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Date: April 2, 2015
Fox News Here I Come!
I am excited and thrilled to announce that I have signed a deal with Fox News to host my own TV show weekdays from 8 pm to 8:30 pm. As you already know, I have always enjoyed appearing on CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg, but the time is right to give this a go on my own, under my terms and my way. Apparently, there is a soon to be announced shake up at the network. The content will be […]
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Date: April 1, 2015
Goldilocks
The stock market continues its Goldilocks behavior of not too hot and not too cold. Two steps up and half or one step back. On Monday, markets were a little too warm early on and that should lead to a little cooling over the coming week or so. It should be just another small pullback in an ongoing uptrend in the context of major bull market. Until proven otherwise, any and all weakness is a buying opportunity. On the sector […]
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Date: March 24, 2015
Dow Jones Industrials Come Calling for Apple Today
After many years of speculation and a healthy 7 for 1 stock split to boot, the folks at Dow Jones finally added Apple into the venerable Dow Jones Industrial Average effective the close on March 18. This had to be one of the worst kept secrets on Wall Street for years. As I mentioned in my 2015 Fearless Forecast, I thought this would happen in 2015. There were no excuses left not to add the tech giant and bellwether. In two […]
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Date: March 19, 2015
