Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, August 19, 2010
How to Track Sidelined Cash As it Moves Back into the Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
Louis Basenese writes: Second quarter earnings season is officially over – and almost 80% of the companies in the S&P 500 beat their earnings expectations.
You’d think that would be enough to propel the markets higher. But not so fast.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
M&A Chatter Trumps Weakness In Energy Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
US stocks rose Wednesday, erasing an early drop, as speculation about corporate takeovers overshadowed a slide in energy producers sparked by a decline in oil. Treasuries pared gains as longer-term yields neared the lowest levels in more than a year. M&A was the theme again yesterday, as BHP Billiton (-3.4%) launched a hostile bid on Potash. There were rumours about further M&A in the UK Insurance space in the morning, followed by afternoon talk of activity emanating in industrials, mining, tech or financials. The main players involved in varying guises were Mittal, Siemens, Ericsson etc.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
Gold, Silver, Crude Oil and SP500 ETF Trend Trading and Reversal Levels / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010
Trading commodities and indexes through the use of exchange traded funds sure keeps things simple for an average trader. These funds allow individual investors to buy and sell things like gold, silver, oil, the sp500 and other investments which where not available only few months ago like “wheat” for example.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
Stock Market Bulls and Bears Face off / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
And that's what both the bulls and bears are facing. Each side has set up a wall that seems too impenetrable. The bulls have set up camp at S&P 500 1080 where there is strong gap support. We've gone down for a few visits, yet each time, just when it looks real bad, the bulls seem to be able to hold their wall up. It has been no different on the other side of the ledger. Each time the bulls get up to the 20- and 50-day exponential moving averages at 1098 on the S&P 500, the bears set up their own wall and the bulls fail.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Financial Markets Which Way Wednesday - Will Connecticut Last A Week? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010
According to its Comptroller, CT will be down to a week’s worth of cash unless it issues $520M in debt by Fall.
If the planned offering of general bond obligations is delayed until 2011, "This coming fall the state would likely have just over a week’s worth of expenses in the bank — a level lower than advisable," Napier wrote in an August 13 letter that is posted on her website. "Conceivably, the State may run out of funds for capital expenses that have already been authorized, allocated and incurred, such as school construction projects," she added. So before the end of the year, Connecticut expects to offer the $520 million of general obligations and as much as $600 million of special tax obligations, which would raise money for transportation. Both issues likely would be offered via negotiation.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Long-Term Investment Case for Stocks and Commodities Stronger than Case for Bonds / Stock-Markets / Investing 2010
In their understandably concerned state of mind in the present day, investors may have lost sight of the longer-term drivers of asset prices. Bonds, especially U.S. Treasuries, have merit presently as high levels of debt have sparked concerns about deflation. However, in the long-run, the case for stocks, commodities, commodity-related currencies, and precious metals looks quite a bit stronger than the case for bonds.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Boys From Brazil – Revisited / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
The economic news just keeps getting worse and worse (and worse), validating the view we spiraling down in another recession within a larger depression. Of course the effect this is having on an ever-decreasing population of traders (only the pros are left and their numbers are shrinking too as the trade patterns become increasingly bizarre) is to become even more bearish and keep on buying puts, because at some point stocks will turn lower to reflect the fundamentals, right? Unfortunately for surface dwellers that think like this they could keep the squeeze in stocks going far longer than most would remain solvent, being just fine with the bureaucracy because this will enable them to keep the illusion alive longer theoretically.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Are Stocks a Screaming Buy Relative to Bonds, or a False Premise ? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
Josh Lipton writing for Minyanville is asking the question Are Stocks a Screaming Buy Relative to Bonds?
Dr. Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research takes one side of the debate and says "stocks are cheap" according to a model, now dubbed the “Fed’s Stock Valuation Model”.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
European Stock Pare Gains After Four Up days / Stock-Markets / European Stock Markets
US stocks rose Tuesday, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest gain in two weeks, following higher-than-estimated earnings and BHP Billiton’s massive $39 billion bid for Potash of Saskatchewan Bellwether stocks. Wal-Mart Stores climbed 1.2% and Home Depot jumped 3.4% as both retailers raised their full-year earnings forecasts. Potash led a rally in fertilizer shares, surging 28%, after rejecting the unsolicited takeover offer from BHP saying (according to the WSJ) BHP has to offer a “Big Boy” price, but the news led all of the fertiliser related names in Europe up with Yara +5.9%, K&S +5.7%. Johnson & Johnson gained 2.1% on news Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway increased its stake in the company.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Stock Market Investing, Sell the West on Strength, Buy the East on Weakness / Stock-Markets / Chinese Stock Market
Double-dip?
I’m not talking about an ice cream cone. I’m talking about economics.
And not the U.S. economy, either, because I unfortunately believe that another recession is signed, sealed, and delivered for us.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
U.S. Treasury Bond Market Is Signaling Stock Market Trouble Ahead / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
My outlook for the economy and the stock market has steadily and significantly deteriorated since March 2010. That’s when monetary indicators started to signal renewed emerging stress in the financial system, and leading economic indicators started heading south.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Stock Market Bulls Fight Back... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
Take no action.
Daily Trend Indications:
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Overvalued Part of a Stock Market Cycle / Stock-Markets / Stock Market Valuations
I had just gotten home from arguing with the in-laws about how they were idiots for not buying gold instead of those stupid stocks and mutual funds, and their laughter was still ringing distastefully in my ears when Eric Fry here at The Daily Reckoning put up a chart of the P/E ratio of the S&P500 over the last 30 years since 1981.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Stock Market Indices Stage Strong Morning Rally, but Close Off Highs / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
The stock market indices staged a very strong rally in the morning when they gapped up strongly, formed bull flags, ran hard mid-morning, flagged again near midday, and then spiked up to the highs for the day near 1860 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1100 on the S&P 500. An afternoon rollover occurred in a 5-wave decline that closed them at the afternoon lows going away.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Slicing the Neckline Head and Shoulders Stock Index Pattern with the Elliott Wave Count / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
In the August issue of his Elliott Wave Theorist, market forecaster Robert Prechter alerted readers that the U.S. stock market was slicing the neckline of a classic head-and-shoulders pattern in technical analysis, and that this may send the market into critical condition.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Stock Market Turn Up Tuesday, POT Gets Really High / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
BHP offered to pay $38.4Bn for POT this morning.
Is BHP high or is this market seriously undervalued? Well, for one thing, POT turned them down saying the offer ($130/share - CASH) "substantially undervalues PotashCorp and fails to reflect both the value of our premier position in a strategically vital industry and our unparalleled future growth prospects." CEO Dallas Howe continues: "We believe it is critical for our shareholders to be aware of this aggressive attempt to acquire their company for significantly less than its intrinsic value.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
The Stock Market Bear is Back / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
The early market action on Monday, August 16th, triggered a key weekly "Trade Triangle" to the downside. Our weekly "Trade Triangle" turned red, indicating that all trends are negative and now pointing lower.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Better Corporate Earnings Boost European Stock Markets / Stock-Markets / European Stock Markets
The majority of US stocks rose Monday, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ending a four-day slump, as technology companies helped the market overcome an earlier slide. That slide was driven primarily by concern about an economic slowdown. EBay gained 2 percent on speculation its PayPal service will be used by Google’s smartphone while Newmont Mining advanced 2 percent as gold prices jumped to a six-week high and Goldman Sachs reiterated its “overweight” rating on commodities. But Washington Pos and Corinthian Colleges both sank a hefty 8 percent plus on concern they will lose access to federal financial-aid programs.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Stock Market Poor Action Overall Continues... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
Five straight gap downs is not something that happens very often. It makes you step back and wonder what it means. Maybe it means nothing bigger picture. Maybe it means something very important. There's one thing, though, that is clear and that's the simple fact that there are now many open gaps that will keep the wallet on the hip for the bulls, and encourage the bears to get more aggressive when gaps are hit from underneath.
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Monday, August 16, 2010
Combining Economic and Stock Index Technical Analysis / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010
Current worries about another global economic slowdown began months ago with news of the euro-zone’s debt crisis, and more recently the austerity measures Europe has adopted to tackle budget deficits. Worries then worsened with reports of China’s slowing growth, and indications of the severity of the slowdown in the U.S.Read full article... Read full article...