This Bear Market rally has some legs: Stocks don’t want to fall–even on really bad economic news from China
Overnight China reported really negative growth numbers with industrial production, fixed asset investment, and consumer spending all growing at rates well below projections. Economists on Wall Street (and its equivalent in Tokyo, etc.) issued new forecasts for...
Drumroll, please: S&P 500 closes below 4,000 today
Today, the Start & Poor’s 500 closed at 3991.24. That’s below the magic 4,000 level. For weeks investors and traders, technically inclined of not, have focused on 4,000 for the Standard & Poor’s 500. Because it’s a nice round number...
No, the sky isn’t falling on stocks, but it will take more than a one-day bounce to reverse patterns of weakness
At the close today the Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 1.06%; the NASDAQ Composite had gained 1.77%; and the small cap Russell 2000 finished ahead 0.64%. Those gains put a stop to a string of three straight days of declines. But today’s upside move...
Key stocks close at 50-day moving average–again
Hmmm. Last time a declining technology sector bounced hard, it staged that recovery after hitting the 50-day moving average. Well, guess what? It’s back. For example, Apple (AAPL), a critical bellwether stock in the sector closed today, September 17, at $110.34....
S&P 500: Testing, testing at 2742
So far this is a normal pause. Stocks frequently pause, pull back, move up again, pull back again when they confront a major resistance level. So it’s not surprising that the Standard & Poor’s 500 took a breather today after the index closed at 2731...
Why predicting a bottom for this bear is so hard: More lessons from the charts
Once stocks have wound up in the jaws of a bear market, the most pressing question is when/where will it end? Which is tough to predict because we have a relatively small data set to project from–we’ve only had 12 bear markets (using the 20% drop from a...
MGM Resorts International: That’s one ugly chart (and what that means for the market as a whole)
If you’re thinking of doing some bottom fishing in a belief that the bear market might be nearing a bottom or that the recent Santa Claus rally could last into the first half of January, I’d suggest you take a look at some charts, either of individual...Caterpillar says this is high water mark for the year–and everybody sells everything
Caterpillar (CAT) crystalized the market’s fears in its conference call this morning. After delivering really great results before the market opened–Caterpillar beat Wall Street earnings estimates by 72 cents a share on earnings of $2.82 a share and then...
NASDAQ tops all-time high: Does that signal a correction?
Thus was supposed to be automatically posted while I was out hiking the Appalachian Trail last week. It ran afoul of a software glitch (mine, I think.) I wrote this before I left on my hike. Since I wasn’t eaten by bears, I’ll be back posting as usual...
Suddenly U.S. stocks seem vulnerable
It’s not like U.S. stocks didn’t have enough to worry about today. The bond market priced in the highest level of inflation expectations since May. Oil fell as Russia’s biggest producer Rosneft said it won’t cut output. Alcoa (AA), the company...Will the crisis in Libya finally produce a (needed) market correction?
Way back on January 20, I wrote that the U.S. stock market was headed for a 5% correction. In fact, I said that the market needed a correction. (See my post https://jubakpicks.com/2010/02/17/so-is-the-correction-over-already/ ) The U.S. market was overbought, I...Getcha predictions here: My scorecard for the fourth quarter
It’s a new quarter. Do we know any more about the trend in the stock market and the economy than we did at the start of last quarter Well, actually a little bit. I don’t think we’re at “Bet the farm” certainty, but figuring out the trend isn’t quite as confounding as...The pause that tells us where this rally is headed
Now we test this rally. The upward move in the market stalled yesterday, July 28, at technical resistance for the NASDAQ Composite index, which had led the advance. Nothing unexpected there. The NASDAQ Composite is up 10% in just 18 days. That’s enough to convince...Two weeks of summer rally or three days of bounce?
Maybe we’ll get a summer rally after all—but it doesn’t look like a very strong or long one. Still the hope for any rally at all is an improvement over the pessimism that has taken increasingly strong hold of the market since the April high.. Watch the NASDAQ...Did the summer rally begin today–and will it be more than just the Return of Son of Bounce II?
The Standard & Poor’s 500 finally broke through the 1108 barrier that had stymied stocks for the last few days. The June intra-day high was at 1105 and the index’s 200-day moving average was at 1108 so today’s close at 1115 is definitely a positive sign. In...Stocks won't give in but they can't break out to the upside either
Stocks refuse to give in but they have been unable to move out of the danger zone either. The U.S. stock market could still swing either way. Take a look at the New York Stock Exchange Composite Index, for example. At the beginning of last week the index fell through...Is it real or is it just a bounce? Only your crystal ball knows for sure
So where does the stock market go from here? U.S. stocks are bouncing off the February 2010 low near 1040 on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index. Good news for anyone with money in the stock market. But what does it mean? Two possibilities Possibility #1: We’re...And the best lack all conviction: The odds are against U.S. stocks holding alone
Breathe a sigh of relief over yesterday’s U.S. stock market rally from the brink of breakdown. But then face reality. With all of the world’s major stock markets—except for the U.S. market–still sinking in search of some support, it’s extremely unlikely that...It's hard to judge today's sell off because options expire tomorrow: How much has that added to the selling pressure?
So far today, it’s a rout. Investors aren’t just selling stocks with big exposure to troubles in Europe or financials at risk from Senate’s financial reform legislation, they’re selling everything. Commodities stocks such as Statoil (STO)—down 6.24% as of 1:20 ET...Could the S&P 500 be finding support near today's low?
A drop of 8.8% from its April recovery high isn’t anything to call home about, but, as Briefing.com points out in a very interesting piece of analysis today, that makes the Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index one of the best performing in the world. And, as...The indicators are pointing? Well, they're confusing
Stocks keep going up. But the market indicators are getting stranger and stranger. On the one hand, the VIX, the S&P 500 Volatility Index, commonly called the “fear index” because it’s a measure of how nervous investors are, is back to levels of complacency that...What comes after the Ho, Ho, Ho! of the Santa Claus rally usually isn't quite as jolly
It’s January. Time to think about taking some profits? Or at least to settle in for a period when U.S. stocks as a whole don’t go much of anywhere. January ends the three month period that for more than 50 years has been on average the best part of the year for...Yes, stocks are rotating away from risk but does it mean anything?
On the surface the stock market isn’t going anywhere. The choppy daily action hardly moves the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in a narrow range between 1088 and 1100. A “strong” rally like that of December 11 moves the index 4 points or 0.37%. But beneath the surface...Short-term stock market momentum falters; watch for signs of a further breakdown
So far—as of yesterday, that is—the dollar rally has been just a bounce. But a rising dollar has now pushed the euro, the Australian and Canadian dollar, and the Brazilian real down to a critical level. Same is true for gold, oil, and other commodities that have...Stocks hit the top of the channel again; a 5% correction would be business as usual here
Here we go again. For all the ups and downs; the crisis scares and the crisis solutions; the good numbers and the bad numbers; this stock market is still moving up. But instead of running up by leaps and bounds, it’s now inching up. Each time it rallies it manages to...More testing ahead for stocks
Not so long ago, November 18 to be precise, I wrote that the rally was still firmly in charge. Right now I’d take out that word “firmly.” I had thought that when the Standard & Poor’s 500 closed above 1110 on November 17 stocks were done consolidating and had...Nervous? Afraid to stay in but scared to get out? Join the club (and read my three strategies for coping)
Feeling twitchy? Your portfolio is probably full of stocks trading at 52-week highs. And I’ll bet you’ve thought about selling. And you would do that–except that the stock market keeps going up (well except for the last couple of days), cash pays close to...You may not like the fundamentals but this rally is headed higher
The test is over. And the stock market rally has passed. On November 16, the Standard & Poor’s 500 and the NASDAQ 100 both joined the Dow Jones Industrials in setting new recovery highs. In other words all three indexes have busted out of the trading range of 1025...Have stocks moved from dip to consolidation already? And is the next move up?
With the Federal Reserve set to speak on the economy and interest rates later today, November 4, and with potentially market-moving numbers on unemployment due out on November 5 and 6, it is certainly too early to say that the dip, correction, whatever, is over. The...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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