Stocks Close Slightly Higher, Ending A Week Of Low Volume Gains; Beautiful Charts Still Do Not Exist
March 10, 2007 | 2 Comments
Stocks gapped higher off a mixed jobs report. Total jobs for the month came in at the lowest level in two years but the unemployment data dipped to 4.5% from 4.6% and last months numbers were revised up continuing a recent pattern, possibly giving market players a bit of buying power. The gap higher then led to an immediate selloff, followed by a weak rally, that led to even more lows. However, at the end stocks actually caught a late bid, helping them close off the lows. A pattern that did not exist the rest of the week. The prevailing pattern, before Friday’s close was to rally until the final hour then either selloff or flatline. This is bearish action and combining that with the low volume rally puts and end to a dead-cat bounce week. Read more
Wild And Choppy Intraday Action Ends With Most Indexes Red; Day Two Of Rally Attempt
March 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was a choppy day today (no surprise here) as stocks opened flat, then fell, the rallied, and then took a last hour nosedive. When it was over, all indexes ended in the red closing near the LOD, except the MidCap 400 index. There was not much in economic news to move the market. The Fed Beige Book showed modest growth in the economy, with 3 out of 12 districts slowing down. This lack of econ news kept the market in a benign trading range that led to a last hour selloff that killed a possible green close. Read more
Stocks Close In The Green But Fail To Recover Much Of The Severe Losses From Yesterday; Where Did All The Nice Charts Go?
March 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stocks gapped higher in the morning but soon lost those gains, off the back of three weak economic numbers. First Q4 GDP came in with a final revision of a 2.2% gain. That was much lower than the initial 3.5% reported and below 2.3% estimates. Then new home sales came in with a Y over Y fall of 16.6%. That was the worst fall in 13 years. Finally, the Chicago PMI fell to 47.9, below the neutral 50 mark, signaling that the factory sector is slowing down. However, Ben came to the rescue, with comments that the economy was “fine” and that the economy is showing “moderate growth.” This helped lift stocks off the lows, leading them to green closes. The tame gains, compared to Tuesday’s losses, however, shows that yesterday’s losses were more than just a one day “mistake.” This had to be disappointing to market bulls, even though they will not tell you it was.
China’s Market Crashes Sending Shockwaves Throughout World Financial Markets; 215% Run In Twenty Months Is Not Sustainable
February 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stocks were crushed, Tuesday, after a meltdown in Asian markets led by the Shanghai index closing lower by 8.8% and a weak durable goods number. The Shanghai index shed almost 9% offering up its worst selloff in over 10 years. This selloff in China, which has been the leading market index the past two years, spilled over to world financial markets and had a devastating effect on ours as well. That combined with durable goods coming in 7.8% lower and missing expectations of 2.2% sent our indexes lower with the worst one day loss in four years. Read more
Indexes All Finish In The Red But Still Finish Well Off The Lows; Leading, Tech, And Small-Cap Stocks Lead This Week
February 24, 2007 | 2 Comments
Stocks finally decided to take a break, across the board, as stocks meandered in the red all day, closing off the lows. However, a slight change of character was the fact that there was no last hour rally. That is probably due to most traders starting the weekend early as an exhaustive holiday shortened week comes to an end. There was no doubt that with no economic news of significance today that digesting this week’s gains was a good thing. Read more
Stock Indexes Rally Off The Lows, Once Again, But Close Mixed
February 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was another wild session, with an intraday bullish bias, after a weak opening. Thanks to bad news out of Iran (did you expect anything else?) and crude oil rising 1.5% on news that inventories were smaller than expected, big caps suffered. However, some positive action in Semiconductor stocks and news that WFMI is buying OATS helped save the Nasdaq. A mixed day to a wild yet uneventful session best sums it up. Read more
Stock Indexes Erase Early Morning Losses, Rallying Into The Close, Closing Near Their Highs Of The Day
February 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stocks fought off morning weakness, caused by a revenue warning from MSFT, and rallied the rest of the day to close flat and near the highs of the day. This bit of news from MSFT particularly hit the Nassy the hardest as MSFT represents 6% of this index. The strength in the indexes in the face of the selling in MSFT shares can only be seen as impressive. Many traders expected much worse, considering that the news came on top of a report showing Housing starts falling 14%. Read more
Stocks Indexes Keep Rallying; New Buy Candidates Drying Up As Most Are Extended Beyond Proper Buy Points
February 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
There was plenty of economic data for the market to feast upon, on Thursday. However, neither that or continued testimony by Ben was able to really move stocks one way or the other. Though industrial output fell by the largest amount in 17 months, stocks didn’t mind and were able to close higher across the board, for the third straight day. Read more
DJIA, DJTA, DJUA, NYSE, And SP-400 Hit All-Time Highs; The Giant Wall-Of-Worry Proves Easy To Climb, For Stocks
February 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Today stocks showed, ONCE AGAIN, why shorting a market that is in a long-term uptrend is an unprofitable and low reward/high risk proposition. All it took today was positive comments from Mr. Bernanke about the economy to ignite a very powerful rally that helped five key indexes hit all-time highs and another one hit six and a half year highs. In front of the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Bernanke stated, “…the view that the current stance of policy is likely to foster sustainable economic growth and a gradual ebbing of core inflation.” Those words right there ignited the rally that we saw today. Read more
DJIA And SP 500 Outperform On Strong Volume; Nasdaq Flops Around In A Tight Intraday Range
February 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was a tale of two tapes as the DJIA and SP 500 rallied quite well while the Nassy lagged as big-chips received bids. The reason for the outperformance was due in large part to shares of AA. Reports that BHP or RTP are bidding for the Aluminum giant helped the big-caps rally. Adding to the power behind the big-caps was MMM announcing a big buyback plan to buy $7 bill of its own shares. That, btw, is very bullish for a stock. Read more








