Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, July 13, 2012
Stocks Bear or Bull Market, Too Close to Call / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Is it a bear market, or is it a bull market, that is the question.
On one hand Europe is obviously in a recession. China is slowing dramatically, and the US economy is clearly in 'stall mode' at best, and slowing rapidly at worst. That alone would suggest that a bear market has begun.
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Friday, July 13, 2012
Euro Zone Crisis Vs the Stock Market 4 Year Cycle / Stock-Markets / Cycles Analysis
Investors are worried that this summer will witness a repeat of the summer debacles of 2010 and 2011. The stock market has itself vulnerable to negative news from overseas as well as earnings disappointments. Is the market’s recent behavior a portent of worse things to come? In this commentary we’ll try and determine whether the market will fulfill the bears’ expectations or disappoint them.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 13, 2012
Euro-zone Crisis, Crossing The Rhine / Stock-Markets / Eurozone Debt Crisis
This month’s calendar has been chock a block with one important meeting or vote or conference after another. Any one of these could have had a large impact on the endless Euro crisis. The most impressive result (sarcasm implied) from all these meetings and votes is the overall lack of impact. For all the wild swings in both debt and equity markets things have changed little in the past month and the European muddle through continues.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
US-Economy on Brink of “Double-dip” Recession as Computer Cowboys Invade Commodity Markets / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012
For most of Wall Street’s history, trading in equities was fairly straightforward: buyers and sellers gathered on exchange floors and haggled until they struck a deal. Computerized trading of stocks didn’t arrive onto the Wall Street scene until the 1980’s. Computer guided “Program trading,” - defined by the NYSE as an order to buy or sell 15-stocks or more, valued at over $1-million total, was blamed for the “Black Monday” Crash of October 1987. Then, in 1998, the internet opened-up markets to anyone with a desktop computer, and a trading idea. Since then, computer trading programs have grown vastly more powerful and the algorithms that guide their trading vastly more sophisticated.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
High Government Deficits "Crowd Out" Stock Market Returns / Stock-Markets / Government Spending
“Crowding out” is an obscure term if you're not an economist – but this replacement of the private sector economy with government spending may end up being one of the largest determinants of your standard of living during retirement. The investment problem is that the past, present and likely future of the US economy is one of rapidly growing government spending. Because the investment models that drive conventional financial planning assume a rapidly growing private sector, this sets up a fundamental competition between government growth and private sector growth for their shares of a single economy, and may lead to a collapse of stock market values and conventionally invested retirement portfolios.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Extreme Danger Signs, U.S. Econcomy Galloping Recession, Brewing Gold Allocated Accounts Scandal / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
In recent public articles, the USTreasury Bond bubble was described, supported by Interest Rate Swaps to produce artificial demand and to create an illusion of a flight to safety in toxic USGovt Bonds. A Black Hole phenomenon was described, which will suck the capital life out of most assets, celebrate the USTBond rally, and accelerate the recession in the USEconomy. Numerous endgame signals were described, all alarming in their own right, not a single signal being from the realm of normalcy. Extreme danger is the warning. This week consider just a handful of danger signposts, all screaming loudly of systemic breakdown. They are all deeply disturbing signposts that complement the endgame signals with a scattered pox of symptoms on the landscape. The Jackass is firm and rigid in maintaining that ugly forecast made in late 2008, dismissed by many as foolish and off the mark. No longer.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don't realize it at the time / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
Kerry Balenthiran writes: "You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don't realize it at the time."
The above quote from Shelby Cullom Davis is particularly applicable to stock markets at present, bear markets inevitably lead to investors losing faith with the stock market. However, as values stagnate prices become better value, providing that earnings are increasing. As a long term investor, providing that we have cash to put to work, the ability to buy good quality stocks cheaply should be welcomed. The reality though is that investors in the stock market, just like homeowners, prefer prices to go up after they have bought as this confirms that they made a good decision in buying.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Two Myths That Stocks Bulls Continue to Cling To Were Just Rendered Moot / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Two myths that the Bulls continue to cling to were rendered moot yesterday. Those myths are:
1) That the Fed will engage in more QE.
2) That Spain is saved.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Stock Market Manipulation and Technical Analysis / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
As sort of a cycle in and of itself, the question of manipulation seems to periodically surface. When it does, I'm also always asked if the Dow theory or any other technical method is still valid because of all the efforts to manipulate the markets. The short answer is, Yes. While manipulation can have a temporary effect on the market, it cannot fix the problem, it cannot stop the inevitable and in the end it will only serve to make matters much worse.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Protect Yourself With Gold Against Collapse of the Faith-Based Financial System / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
With the LIBOR manipulation scandal and the collapse of commodity brokers MF Global and PFG Best, what is the average investor to do?
Lauren Lyster discusses the answer in a Capital Account interview with Simon Mikhailovich, co-manager of Ediesis Capital.
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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Corporate Earnings and Fed Minutes Hit The Stock Market....... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
We are going through a rough period here with regards to earnings these days. A few months back we had Chambers, head of Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO), say the economy fell off a cliff. Many criticized him, saying it was just his bad leadership that was causing their problems. They were wrong. He was right. The economy did fall off a cliff. Now we're seeing the fallout as there are a lot of companies warning. More than we've seen in quite some time. The scary part is the size of the warnings. Not what they just reported but their future guidance.
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Wednesday, July 11, 2012
How Long Will the Bidding Up of Asset Prices on Leverage Go On / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
The Tisch family's shipping venture (A Buyer's Market) jogged the memory. The August 26, 1985, issue of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, in which Jim Tisch discussed buying ships for less than 10% of the new construction price, included a mix of leveraged developments that appeared doomed. Some were. Some go on and on.
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Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Tech Stocks Signal Bearish Move for Stock Market / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Today's intraday pop and drop reversal contributes to the growing picture of bearish tape action more consistent with a C wave decline. We are starting to see "good" news, such as recent announcements from the EU, either ignored or actually sold, whereas bad news is being hit hard, such as AMD's profit warning. Alcoa announced an earnings beat and it intially popped and then got crushed for -3.3% on big volume:
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Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Our Money Is Dying, Don't let your wealth die with it / Stock-Markets / Fiat Currency
A question on the minds of many people today (increasingly those who manage or invest money professionally) is this: How do I preserve wealth during a period of intense official intervention in and manipulation of money supply, price, and asset markets?
As every effort to re-inflate and perpetuate the credit bubble is made, the words of Austrian economist Ludwig Von Mises lurk ominously nearby:
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Tuesday, July 10, 2012
A Ship Buyer's Market / Stock-Markets / Global Economy
"China should delay its bid to pass South Korea as the world's biggest shipbuilder to prevent a flood of new vessels extending industry-wide losses, said Clarkson Plc's Managing Director Martin Stopford. 'This sort of target really should be put aside for the time being,' he said in an interview Wednesday at a conference in Shanghai. China has asked state banks to boost financing for new ships to prevent order cancellations, safeguard jobs and support a plan to pass South Korea in ship production by 2015. At the same time, the global container-ship fleet has as much as 20 percent excess capacity...." -- China Shipyards Should Delay Bid to Pass Korea, Business Asia, December 4, 2009
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Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Don't Let Wall Street Play You For a "Fool" / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
William Patalon III writes: If you're like me when you go out shopping, you look for deals. You watch for sales. And you search out bargains. Why pay full price when you can get the same item at a hefty markdown?
That's an economic concept known as "price elasticity." This "rule" essentially says (and I'm dramatically oversimplifying this) that when the price of a product rises, demand for it falls.
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Monday, July 09, 2012
Stocks Bear Market Focus Point: Yet again, Another Bull Trap in the Making / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market
The extraordinary end of month move up in the prices of currencies, oil, gold, copper and equities on June 29th, should be a warning to all of the financial markets’ propensity for large and highly volatile short term moves. Moves facilitated by hedge funds using similar trading tools all making similar trading decisions at the same time. In this case it appeared to be initiated by rather intense end of quarter short covering exacerbated by a rather over-hyped prop-up style financial agreement in Euroland. Timing of this agreement just could not have been better, with very little media coverage at the time pointing out the insignificance of the amounts of money involved in bank support agreements, compared to the trillions of dollars at risk associated with a deteriorating world economy. My earlier discussion on end of month trading shenanigans by the hedge funds in my last commentary on June 4th, was certainly well timed.
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Monday, July 09, 2012
Stock Market Short-term Correction Expected / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
Current Position of the Market
SPX: Very Long-term trend - The very-long-term cycles are down and, if they make their lows when expected (after this bull market is over) there will be another steep and prolonged decline into late 2014. It is probable, however, that the steep correction of 2007-2009 will have curtailed the full downward pressure potential of the 120-yr cycle.
SPX: Intermediate trend - SPX is back in an intermediate uptrend.
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Monday, July 09, 2012
Making Accurate Stock Market Forecasts Using U.S. Dollar Index / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012
The term Stock market predictions is a very controversial topic and does seem to give off a negative/non-credible overtone to most traders, investors and the general public. We all know you cannot predict the market with 100% certainty, but knowing that you can still predict the market more times than not if done correctly. Keep in mind that the term "market prediction" is also known as a market forecast or technical analysis outlook and is nothing more than a estimated guess of where the price for a specific investment is likely to move in the coming minutes, hours, days, weeks and even months.
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Sunday, July 08, 2012
Into the Matrix of the Stocks Earnings Curve Effect Deflation / Stock-Markets / Corporate Earnings
What does the current environment of earnings and valuations tell us about the prospects for the US stock markets in general over the next 3-5-7-10 years? This week we have part two of "Bull's Eye Investing Ten Years Later," which we started last week. These two letters have been co-authored with Ed Easterling of Crestmont Research. We take a look at research we did almost ten years ago as part of my book Bull's Eye Investing, updating the data and asking,"Are we there yet? When will we get to the end of the secular bear market?" We will start with a few paragraphs from last week's letter and then move right along.
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