Monday, August 9, 2010
There is a solution to everything.  Of course, some solutions are better than others.

The government’s latest snapshot of the job market was bleak, with 14.6 million Americans still searching for work.  The disappointment is not limited to July; the report also included unfavorable revisions to data released in previous months.  It is [...]

Monday, May 3, 2010
The rally finally ran into some resistance.  Still, the Dow Jones Industrial Average remains above 11,000.  However, the thing that caught my eye last week was that the Dow broke below its recent trend-line.  By itself, not a cause for major concern, just a key to notice.  The question is whether it [...]

Monday, March 29, 2010
Markets climb a wall of worry … but I don’t recall a bull run, like we’ve seen recently, with so much fear and loathing as a back-drop.

The U.S. equity markets have held-up remarkably well, and much better than I expected.
Yet, the Euro continues to struggle.  It is worth noting that  some traders [...]

Monday, February 15, 2010

The markets did rally, a little, last week.  However, they are still beneath the overhead resistance and the longer-term downwards sloping trend-line.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been able to hold above the 10,000 level. Is that important?
Does Dow 10,000 Really Mean Something?
The WSJ published an article called “Milestone Figures Grab [...]

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

On the surface, the markets still look pretty good.  However, last week something happened that I consider a bearish warning sign.  The Market sold-off on good news.  Although Intel announced strong results, it looks like the market priced-in the good news already.
In addition, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index has lagged the S&P [...]

Monday, December 21, 2009
John Mauldin and George Friedman were in Dallas this week.  Several hundred people came out to hear their thoughts on the world and the economy.
For what it’s worth, Freidman’s Stratfor service and Mauldin’s Thoughts from the Frontline and are both terrific reads.
I take it as a bullish sign that so many people [...]

11/16/09
What do you think is the most bullish indicator of our markets?  It’s not a trick question; the answer is “price”.
The markets have held-up nicely, throughout this rally, despite lots of bad news about the economy. And that, in-and-of-itself, is bullish.
It doesn’t matter what technical analysis indicator you use (increasing negative divergences and selling on [...]

11/9/09
The best thing I can say about the market is that the current lack of sellers is giving investors a good long chance to take their bullish bets off the table.
Unemployment is above 10%, and at its highest level since 1983.  Here are a few economic signs.

What about the Market?
The chart below shows an upwards [...]

Monday, November 2, 2009

Last week it started to feel like the markets were breaking-down.   Most of the major US equity indices broke down through their 50-day moving averages and also below their up-trend lines. Likewise, the Dow is back under 10,000 again.
The chart, below, shows that we are that an important support and resistance level [...]

Another week of strong performance by the markets leaves me searching for clues and signs of weakness. It’s not that I don’t like how the markets are reacting; because this has been a nice traders market. However, trading is about risk management and doing your best to recognize fear or greed.
So, one of the indicators [...]

Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Our credit market debt is approximately 375% of our Gross Domestic Product.  That caught my attention; it shows how much more burden the economy carries now than it did during the Great Depression.  The unemployment situation adds to that burden.

If that isn’t frightening enough, the next chart gives a slightly different perspective.  [...]