Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Wednesday, December 04, 2013
Stock Market Indices Uptrends Are Intact / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Courtesy of Doug Short. This is an update of the bullish trend in stocks that I have been monitoring for some time. First let me say I fully understand the macro-headwind of enormous debt. I’m also aware some argue there remains excessive leverage and risk-taking in the economy, poor demographics (e.g. large generation retiring), and less than stellar growth, which is often referenced by those in disbelief of the current rally. I also understand that weekly economic reports are often contradictory to this stock market rally. But one thing remains quite clear — the trend is up until it isn’t (Thanks Yogi).
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Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Inflation - Gasoline $1/Gallon / Stock-Markets / Inflation
My children will never let me forget this: while on a Carter-era family vacation to Florida, I pulled into a gas station and abruptly drove off, announcing, "I'll be damned if I will pay $1/gallon for gasoline." With each passing mile on I-75, the prices got higher and I became even more frustrated. Finally, I had no choice but to pay the price because the car was running on fumes. Then I watched the kids snicker in the backseat as I pumped the gas.
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Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Stocks & Bonds Party - The Madness of Crowds and Looking Like An Idiot / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2013
IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; - opening stanza to Rudyard Kipling's, "If"
So, let's say you're a prudent person who has concerns that our economy isn't 'recovering' as robustly as you'd like.
Perhaps you still remember the speed and depth of the 2008 credit crisis' arrival, and its toxic impact on asset prices, jobs, and overall trust in the financial system. Maybe you took notes during the preceding tech and housing bubbles and their aftermath. If so, you likely swore that "Never again!" would you put your wealth at risk during such obvious times of public mania.
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Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Stock Market Sell Signals Abound / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Good Morning!
The NYSE Hi-Lo index went negative this morning and exceeded its two prior lows. This confirms the sell signal in SPX.
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Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Investors Borrowing Like Drunkards to Buy Stocks Again? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Michael Lombardi writes:
This morning we learned sales for this year’s Black Friday weekend declined for the first time since 2009. I have been warning my readers for months that falling consumer confidence would result in a pullback in consumer spending—and that’s exactly what’s happening this holiday shopping season.
According to the National Retail Federation, consumers spent an average of $407.02 from Thursday through Sunday, down about four percent from what they spent last year. (Source: National Retail Federation press release, December 1, 2013.)
Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Stock Market Chart Analysis of SPX, $VIX,UVXY / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Thomas Clayton writes: I have iterated the numerical variables of the Indicators to Synchronize with the Price. As noted the Sell is triggered with a cross below Stoch RSI 0.8, Slow Stoch 80, %B Peak, and MACD fast line impending crossing Below Zero and MACD line Crossing down in this case. The Stoch RSI will lead Slow Stoch for an early warning. Notice the MACD cross below Zero, there is usually and acceleration in Price in that respective direction. The MACD dark blue line is just passing below Zero, If follow through on Tues. Will be a surge down in the $SPX.
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Monday, December 02, 2013
Stock Market Seasonality And The Fed Are A Powerful Combination / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
The market makes most of its gains each year in its favorable season of approximately October to May. A separate positive influence is the Federal Reserve when it’s providing easy money and low interest rates in an effort to revive a flagging economy.
Those individual influences are so consistent they’ve been memorialized in long time market maxims ‘Sell in May and Go Away’ (to come back November 1), and ‘Don’t Fight the Fed’.
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Monday, December 02, 2013
This Will Change the Way You Think About Investing Forever / Stock-Markets / Investing 2013
Dr. Kent Moors writes: We've already made good money playing publically traded oil and gas companies.
125% on Cheniere... 200% on Halliburton... 210% on Western Refining... 542% on Westport Innovations... 300% on Golar LNG...
And given energy's across-the-board potential, our focus on growth isn't going to change.
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Monday, December 02, 2013
Stock Market Rally Stretched to its Limit / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Very Long-term trend - The very-long-term cycles are in their down phases, and if they make their lows when expected (after this bull market is over), there will be another steep decline into late 2014. However, the severe correction of 2007-2009 may have curtailed the full downward pressure potential of the 40-yr and 120-yr cycles.
Intermediate trend - An important top formation is in the making.
Analysis of the short-term trend is done on a daily basis with the help of hourly charts. It is an important adjunct to the analysis of daily and weekly charts which discusses the course of longer market trends.
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Monday, December 02, 2013
How Long Will the “Miracle on Wall Street” Stock Market Rally Continue? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Mohammad Zulfiqar writes: As the key stock indices are going higher, there’s a growing concern among investors that we are reaching a top. There’s a significant amount of noise that says the key stock indices are running on nothing but free money and the fundamentals that drive them higher are dead. We’re hearing that it’s all going to fall soon.
To some degree, I agree that easy money has a hand in the rise of key stock indices, and that current corporate earnings aren’t all that impressive. However, while observing the markets over time, I have learned that tops and bottoms are not easy to predict; in fact, it’s impossible. That’s because it isn’t clear when they happen and they can only be identified once they have been made.
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Monday, December 02, 2013
Stock Market Rally Accelerates / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Courtesy of Doug Short. Seven of the eight indexes in my international focus group posted gains over the past week. After three weeks as the worst performer, India’s SENSEX topped the latest list with a 2.84% surge. Germany’s DAXK came in second with a 2.02% gain for the week. The S&P 500 finished seventh with a fractional 0.06% weekly gain to finish next to last, but that was enough to register the eighth consecutive positive weekly close, the longest stretch since the nine weeks in early 2004. The UK’s FTSE 100 was the sole loser, with a modest 0.36% decline.
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Sunday, December 01, 2013
Ben Bernanke Financial Crisis Hero? / Stock-Markets / US Federal Reserve Bank
The true measure of a career is to be able to be content, even proud, that you succeeded through your own endeavors without leaving a trail of casualties in your wake. – Alan Greenspan
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid. – John Maynard Keynes
And He spoke a parable to them: "Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch?" – Luke 6:39-40
Six years ago I hosted my first Thanksgiving in a Dallas high-rise, and my then-90-year-old mother came to celebrate, along with about 25 other family members and friends. We were ensconced in the 21st floor penthouse, carousing merrily, when the fire alarms went off and fire trucks began to descend on the building. There was indeed a fire, and we had to carry my poor mother down 21 flights of stairs through smoke and chaos as the firemen rushed to put out the fire. So much for the advanced fire-sprinkler system, which failed to work correctly.
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Saturday, November 30, 2013
Stock Market Normal Bull or Bubble Bull? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
After making a new high at the open on Monday the market pulled back a bit, then bounced off that high for two more days. After the holiday the market opened above the high, rallied to SPX 1814, then pulled back in the last hour of trading. For the week the SPX/DOW were +0.1%, the NDX/NAZ were +1.8%, and the DJ World index was +0.3%. On the economic front positive reports finally outpaced negative reports for the week. On the downtick: pending home sales, consumer confidence, durable goods orders, and the Chicago PMI. On the uptick: building permits, Case-Shiller, the FHFA, consumer sentiment, leading indicators, the WLEI and weekly jobless claims improved. Next week will be incredibly busy highlighted by: Q3 GDP, the monthly Payrolls, and the FED’s beige book.
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Saturday, November 30, 2013
Is Bitcoin a Ponzi Scheme? / Stock-Markets / Bitcoin
I hereby make a prediction: Bitcoins will go down in history as the most spectacular private Ponzi scheme in history. It will dwarf anything dreamed of by Bernard Madoff. (It will never rival Social Security, however.)
To explain my position, I must do two things. First, I will describe the economics of every Ponzi scheme. Second, I will explain the Austrian school of economics’ theory of the origin of money. My analysis is strictly economic. As far as I know, it is a legal scheme — and should be.
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Saturday, November 30, 2013
The Economist's Sell Signal / Stock-Markets / Inflation
The disintegration of central banking shifted to overdrive in November. The Senate Banking Committee's listless accreditation of Janet Yellen as next Fed chairman was not a surprise, but it was notable that vigorous critics of Chairman Bernanke, such as Senator Bob Corker, dozed through the hearing. When the bubble of all bubbles bursts, and the Senate and Congressional oversight committees fulminate at central bankers, it will be those politicians who should sit in the dock. They could have acted. Instead, the Senate is whisking Bernanke-Squared to the throne, as quickly and quietly as possible.
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Saturday, November 30, 2013
Stock Market All-Time Intraday High Fades at the Finish / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Courtesy of Doug Short. On a light day of post-Thanksgiving trading, the S&P 500 opened higher and rallied to its mid-morning intraday high, up 0.35%, which set a new all-time intraday high for the index. Action moved sideways until the lunch hour, selling dropped the index to its 0.18% intraday low, which was subsequently trimmed to a 0.08% loss at the 1 PM early close.
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Saturday, November 30, 2013
Financial and Commodity Market Movers into 2014 / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2014
“The World is Getting Closer to that End Game Every Day,” Jim Rickards, “Currency Wars, The Making of the Next Global Crisis”
Powerful Forces Extrinsic to the Markets will determine Key Market Moves over the next few months and beyond. We identify certain of those here and indicate how they are likely to affect the Markets.
For example, “Fundamentals,” Technicals, and Interventionals all now point to an Impending (extrinsically generated) Big Move to Climax in one Key Sector, which we identified in our December Letter.
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Saturday, November 30, 2013
How My Time in Jail Helped Me Understand The Global Economy / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2013
Dear reader, I must apologize for the dearth of my commentaries that are my attempt to help us interpret the complex global economic issues that bedevil our return to a normal, stable sustainable, sensible, state of global economic tranquility. My recent incarceration [more on that later] has made access to a computer somewhat problematic.
I was overwhelmed by the absurdity
Truthfully I have tried many times in recent months to apply my limited intelligence and nascent journalistic skills to analyze the current state of affairs. Each time I sat at my computer and prepared to put finger to keyboard, I was overwhelmed by the absurdity of our situation.
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Friday, November 29, 2013
Stock Market Euphoria During Troubled Times / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Major equity markets approach nosebleed levels. Experts disagree on whether bubble extremes approach. They’re not unusual. They happen often.
The myth about markets reflecting reality is hokum. Keynes once warned about “enterprise becom(ing) the bubble on a whirlpool of (destructive) speculation.” Hard times usually follows.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Stock Market Rally the Biggest Case of “Financial Engineering” in History? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2013
Michael Lombardi writes: Key stock indices are roaring higher each day. The S&P 500 is breaking through to new records; the Dow Jones Industrial Average sits above the 16,000 level, and the NASDAQ Composite Index trades at a level not seen since the Tech Boom. Sadly, as all of this happens, the one fundamental that has historically driven stock prices higher—corporate earnings—is missing from the equation.
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