A "buy signal" occurs when there is demand for a stock. You know from Economics 101, anything in demand will see its' price rise. The "Bullish Percent" is a way to count all of the buy signals. That tells us the *percentage* of stocks that are currently on buy...
Lots of people are buzzing because the Dow is at 13,000. Let me tell you, the return over the past six years from the Dow Jones is less than what you could have earned in a money market account. Don't get too excited. As I showed you last week, small cap stocks have...
Friday was a wild day -- market up 130 points. Why? Two reasons. First, Friday was option expiration -- which always leads to more volatility. The most volatility occurs during expiration week each month. So, am I saying the market will fall from here? No! But it...
You'd think the news that rising corn prices would provide a great opportunity to make money in that commodity. But the move in corn was...not last week...or even last month...but last year! In many instances, by the time a "news story" is reported in your daily...
No wonder many people have lousy opinions of Wall Street folks. Read on: Written in Barron's March 5, 2007 issue, Bill Alpert noted that nearly 20% of "Analyst Recommendations" over a ten year period from 1993-2002 were changed -- after the fact. Twenty Percent! As a...
In my previous message, I talked about how we moved to defense twice in 2004, but it seemed the market didn't go down either time. If the markets weren't going down, why get defensive? It's an example of where the "generals" stay to fight, but the "soldiers" were...
All of the short term AND long-term indicators I follow have now turned negative. All of 'em. Including the S&P 500. What's that mean? Well, the S&P 500 Index is simply the 500 largest stocks in the US. And, basically, 70% of all money in mutual funds sits...
As I am writing this, the Dow Jones is down nearly 180 points. Sounds like a lot, right? That's about 1.5% By comparison, October 19, 1987 the stock market dropped 22% in one day. Perspective does matter. Anyway, the last few days, I've seen headlines like: -...
Think you would you be HAPPY earning less than 1% a year on your money? Many people are...and you might be one of them! Look in your retirement plan, or 401k at work. Say we invest it in the S&P 500 Index at the end of 1999. Leave it there. You're supposed to be a...
We've seen lots of articles and news pieces about the explosion of Exchange-Traded Funds, or ETF's. Most of the opinions have been negative. In fact, one writer compared this with the flood of closed-end funds created in the late 1920's (before the stock market...
