The rally rallies: Back to normal after Monday's stagger
This rally isn’t quite ready to quit yet. And it looks like a test of 1120 on the Standard & Poor’s 500 is still in the cards. (See my post https://jubakpicks.com/2009/09/21/is-1120-the-next-big-test-for-the-sp-500/ .) In my overnight post I said...Valuation worries are starting to slow this rally
Stocks are starting to strike many investors as pricy. How can I tell? Days like September 21 are a pretty convincing sign. On Monday, while market leaders such as commodities and materials stocks pulled back, healthcare–specifically shares of biotechnology...Is 1120 the next big test for the S&P 500?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is closing in on 10,000 again and you can expect the financial talking heads to get all breathless as we approach that mark. But for investors the index to watch and the number to watch in the next few weeks is the Standard &...Stocks are overbought but the trend is still up
Markets always run to extremes both on the up and downside. And sometimes the extremes can be quite extreme. Right now a number of technical indicators are saying that stocks are overbought. That means they’re headed for a correction. Some time. But stocks that...Time to start planning for the next rally
It’s time to consider shifting gears. Instead of chasing the winners of the last stock market rally—the one that’s still going on–I think you should start putting some money into the potential winners of the next move up. Even if that means leaving the last 10%..."Most of the time" rallies like this have been followed by a gain over the next 12 months.
You shouldn’t be worried that the recent 50% (and more) rally from the March lows will be followed by a vicious collapse. Since World War II, most of the time a year after a move of 30% or more in a six month period, stocks were higher yet a year later. In eight of...Home prices could fall by another 25%, says Meredith Whitney, but stock market shrugs
The stock market doesn’t hear what it doesn’t want to hear. On September 10, influential financial sector analyst Meredith Whitney of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group told CNBC that U.S. home prices could fall by yet another 25%. The stock market barely blinked before...Stocks test the top of their range
Nice of the stock market to cooperate while I was on vacation. Stocks didn’t move substantially higher and they didn’t move substantially lower while I was away from my desk in the last weeks of August. The market was what I’d call range bound for...Huh? Wall Street figures higher unemployment is good news?
You’d think that last week’s jump in the August unemployment rate to 9.7%–the consensus among economists was for just 9.5%–would have sent stocks tumbling. After all, if more people are out of work, consumers will buy less. And it’s not exactly a vote of...Asian stocks are looking expensive. Which could be good for U.S. shares
Asian stocks were rallying again as I wrote this about midnight New York time on Wednesday August 13. Nothing really surprising about what kind of companies were leading the move. Gainers included miners (BHP Billiton (BHP), the world’s largest mining company),...Is the speed of China's economic growth a fiction?
Timing is everything. Any first year accounting student knows that the easiest way—in the short term–to make a company’s revenues and earnings look good is to change when a company recognizes a sale or an expense. Recognize a sale as soon as the sales person...Will Monday's second thoughts on the jobless numbers leak into Tuesday? And beyond?
Remember Friday, August 7? That day the stock market tacked 114 points, a huge gain for a market that was looking tired, onto the Dow Jones Industrial Average on news that jobless rolls, rather than swelling by 328,000 as economists had expected showed an increase of...Traders are betting on a September stock market swoon
Bloomberg reports today that traders are buying options on the VIX, a measure of stock market volatility, that will pay off if stocks plunge in September. (Here’s the link to the full Bloomberg story:...Credit Suisse calls a top–temporarily–for emerging markets stocks
Credit Suisse, the Swiss investment banking and asset management giant, told clients on August 6 that emerging stock markets had hit a top after rallying 72% in five months. The note said that six indicators had turned negative on these markets: the 200-day moving...Good news from North Korea will get Asian stock markets hopping
There’s a good chance that the biggest financial story on Wednesday August 5 won’t be a financial story at all. In a stunning turnaround North Korea’s Kim Jong Il has pardoned two American journalists and ordered their release from a North Korean...Is the global current stock rally counting on more spending than the U.S.consumer will deliver?
We know that the U.S. consumer isn’t spending. Consumer spending, known to the government as “personal consumption expenditure,” fell at an annualized rate of 1.2% in the second quarter. That’s a bigger decline than government figures showed for the economy as a...The big test: How long will it take this rally to bust through 1,000 on the S&P?
Notice that I’m asking When?and not If? This rally looks like it has enough momentum to get through the 1,000 barrier. It sure helps that the big alternative to stocks, money market funds, are paying just 0.5% right now. With lots of cash on the sidelines I do...How long can the rally run? How fast can Wall Street raise earnings estimates?
Call it the over-reaction reaction. Now that stocks are rallying and companies are beating Wall Street earnings estimates, Wall Street analysts have started to raise their projections for 2010 earnings. The move may not be based on real fundamentals, but it will...Same old bear or brand new bull? I'm afraid the answer is "Yes"
Has the stock market rally that has seen the Standard & Poor’s 500 index climb 44% off the March 9, 2009 low ended the bear market that began in October 2007? Or is the bear still fully in charge and the recent rally merely a typical bear market rally? Deciding...What to look for today July 24: The traditional Friday selling after a rally
Thank God it’s Friday. After moving up so strongly–aother 4% gain on the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index from Monday to Thursday–the stock market is almost certain to retreat tomorrow. But because it’s a Friday–and the market...Testing the June highs–again
Looks like the stock market is thinking about taking a rest. As I noted way back on July 15 in the first column I wrote for this blog, “Why rallies fail,” I don’t think any rest is going to be a long one–there’s too much money on the...Things go better–but not better enough–with Coke
Investors didn’t like Coca Cola’s (KO) second quarter earnings reported before the open on July 21. The stock was down around 2% at 1:30 p.m. ET that day. I’ve got to wonder what they’re been drinking. If you look beyond the problems created...A week’s big rally leaves the stock market picture even more uncertain
At the beginning of the week a lot of technical analysts and veteran stock watchers were convinced they knew where the market was going, at least in the short-run. Stocks were on the verge of setting a temporary top, they said, and the next few weeks would see the...So where's the growth? IBM's earnings climbed but sales fell.
So where’s the revenue growth to keep the rally going? The July 16 earnings results from IBM (IBM) were great news for IBM and its shareholders. The company did beat Wall Street earnings projections by 30 cents a share for the second quarter of 2009 when it reported...Why Rallies Fail
Has the rally that began in March run out of gas? Sure looks that way. After climbing by 40% from the March 9 bottom through June 12, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index has gone precisely nowhere. Well, maybe even a little short of nowhere. From June 12th...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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