Bulls Fighting to Begin the Year But Apple, Apple, Apple
After opening down 400 points on the first trading day of 2019, the bulls fought back really hard to erase 100% of that loss by the close and eke out a small gain. That was very impressive. Leadership came from the most beaten down sectors from 2018, energy and financials. That’s not surprising. So many investors sold those names during Q4 for tax loss reasons as well as window dressing to make their portfolio holdings look better than they actually […]
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Date: January 3, 2019
Big Gains to Close the Year But the Bulls Remain on Their Heels
Welcome to 2019! I hope you had an enjoyable and safe New Year’s. We had an absolutely wild and crazy one. It was one for the ages! I think my wife and I were fast asleep by 11pm although I am told that the kids were up until 1am. It’s good to be young. We were in Vermont and had some folks over for a very low key evening as yet another non snow producing winter storm came through as […]
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Date: January 1, 2019
Bulls and Santa Claus Making a Stand. One Indicator for the All Clear
December has already set all kinds of precedents going back to the 1800s, including depth of decline, speed of decline, length of decline and intensity of decline. Remember, stocks just don’t decline all that often in December, ESPECIALLY during a mid-term election year where Q4 and December has almost always been like shooting fish in a barrel. I had to go all the way back to 1931 to find anything remotely similar, but let’s face it, price analogs that old […]
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Date: December 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
What Happened to the “Easy” Week?!?!
I hope you had a meaningful and terrific Thanksgiving! I cannot believe the amount of food I consumed although without the traditional bottles of wine, I guess there was a lot more room. Having been out of town since last Thursday, I am looking forward to getting home today, seeing my pets and sleeping in my own bed. This week was supposed to see a mild drift higher, especially after Monday. You know, it was one of those “easy” weeks […]
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Date: November 23, 2018
Bears Maul Seasonal Tailwinds
Two weeks ago in Battle Lines Drawn, I showed four horizontal blue lines which I thought would dictate market behavior for a while. There wasn’t anything secret or proprietary about them, just four price areas that seemed to garnering a lot of attention. When the masses focus on certain prices, the market will usually do its best to exceed them and make the most people look like fools. In this case, soon after stocks exceeded the closest blue line, they […]
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Date: November 21, 2018
OUCH!
The bears absolutely mauled the seasonal tailwinds I mentioned yesterday. Remember, seasonal trends are just helpers and usually do not begin or accelerate a trend. Nonetheless, Monday was very ugly for the bulls and Tuesday looks to be equally nasty or worse. This is unusual behavior for Thanksgiving week, but not without precedent. The bulls are now in “hope” mode as liquidity is beginning to dry up and they will need a herculean effort to accomplish some time kind Turnaround […]
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Date: November 20, 2018
Seasonal Tailwind This Week
Stocks begin the holiday-shortened Thanksgiving week with an upside reversal last Thursday and a little bit of follow through on Friday. Stocks continue the process of repairing the internal damage done by the October correction before assaulting Dow 27,000 in the New Year. However, I want to be clear; at this point I do not have strong conviction that last week’s reversal is the final nail in the market’s bottom. I can still see two diverging paths to new highs […]
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Date: November 19, 2018
Bulls Making a Stand
Thursday saw upside reversals in all of the major indices which means that stocks opened lower, traded a little lower and then rocketed higher into the close. That should comfort the bulls, at least into next week as a solid seasonal tailwind blows into the holiday. Is it possible that we just saw the final low on Thursday? Sure. It’s POSSIBLE. I am not pounding the table with high conviction like I would or will if stocks revisit the lows […]
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Date: November 16, 2018
