The line heard in every economic recession, and every single stock market pullback is: this time it's different. Which is usually one of the single best indicators to tell you that the market is putting a bottom in place, and we can only expect the market to move up...
Let's talk about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. How could these two companies be "OK" a week ago --- and now this week they seem on the brink of disaster? If you've heard of these two companies, but you're not really sure who they are and what they do, just understand --...
Looking at relative strength changes really helps to drive home underlying themes in the market. As I have been saying for several weeks, there are only a few sectors that have been going up -- most sectors have been just treading water -- and some sectors are...
This article could be titled: Can (fill in the blank) go any lower? I'm not picking on Merck. The reality is you could drop in Merck, Citibank, General Motors, Ford, J.P. Morgan, along with most other names in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (and most of the largest...
OK, no names are used in this post! But holy cow! In the midst of the sell off this week, Bloomberg Radio interviewed a money manager about the current condition of the market. The money manager went on and on making predictions about the market. How would he know...
Oh boy, these kinds of headlines are never good. Two former Bear Stearns portfolio managers were arrested this week, not because they did a poor job of managing money. They were arrested because they misled investors in a few ways: They told investors they personally...
Frequent readers have seen earlier posts where I have discussed option expiration week and the volatility that comes with it. But there was scant mention of option expiration at all this week. Options expired on Friday and the Dow Jones dropped 220 points. Instead,...
The indicators flipped to defense this past week. What does that mean? Well for many of us, we have a LOT of money already in cash. so we're properly positioned. But now what? This is where knowing the game plan comes in handy. The average length of time the market is...
Just about the time Mr. & Mrs. Jones realize "hey that stock market is start to look pretty good!" is when the positive momentum often starts to fade -- and often swings to a negative weekly momentum. And that's precisely where we stand today. We have some cash on...
The market averages seem to be starting summer early. We saw a broad-based sell-off this past week, after several weeks of positive movement. For now, this looks more like a pause (a breather) than the beginning of something substantial. Our signals are still flashing...
