Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, January 26, 2008
Stock Market Dominant Trend Remains Down / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
In the end, investors and traders really did not want to go home long equities Friday, even after the Fed's emergency rate cut on Tuesday, which is certainly not a confidence builder. Maybe the bulls will feel a bit more confident after the weekend.
In any case, I think it is fitting for us to take a look at this week's
price range in the S&P 500 and to notice that all of the action, including
the post rate-cut rally, has transpired below the last week's critical
breakdown plateau at 1362.50.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Stock Market Investors Running With the Herd / Stock-Markets / Investing
Running with the herd certainly beats trying to run against it—and getting trampled in the process. But it comes with a cost: surrendering your own common sense for “group think” that often makes no real sense at all.
As I pointed out last week, the character of the Wall Street herd has changed remarkably over the past two decades. Back in the 1980s, individual investors still accounted for the majority of stock ownership. Today, trading is squarely in the hands of big institutions and those who run them.
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Saturday, January 26, 2008
Stock Market Gloom and Doom - “Granville's Golden Rule” Versus Conventional Wisdom / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
Market forecaster Joe Granville was a colorful character in what has always been perceived as a staid and conservative business. The great stock market guru of the 1970s was known for his outlandish antics and prescient market forecasts.
He would often appear at lectures wearing garish costumes, including blinking bow ties, electrified sunglasses, togas, Elvis costumes and chicken outfits. Infamously, he was known for dropping his pants and reading stock quotes to surprised observers.
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Friday, January 25, 2008
The US Fed, Societe Generale Rogue Trader, William Poole, and Black Swans / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
On Tuesday morning, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 75 basis points in response to a worldwide selloff. The selloff started on mounting fears that the United States has fallen into a recession. The mass fear became so great that the Federal Reserve felt compelled to act before next week's meeting in an attempt to restore confidence in the markets. In the press release, one governor, William Poole from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis voted against a move before next week's meeting. While his actions may leave some people scratching their heads, one needs to go to the website ( http://stlouisfed.org/default.cfm ), note the commentary on the left side of the page, and read the following speech ( http://stlouisfed.org/publications/re/2008/a/pages/inflation.html ).Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, January 25, 2008
Stocks Secular Bear Market / Stock-Markets / UK Stock Market
Back in early October when the benchmark S&P 500 stock index was hitting all-time highs, “bear” was a heretical four-letter word. Merely letting it roll off your tongue or spill from your pen offered a fast track to pariah status. In the best of times, people tend to forget that the worst of times are even possible anymore.
But after the most brutal new-year selloff in market history, investors and speculators are far more receptive to the usually taboo topic of stock bears. Most on Wall Street consider a bear market a 20% decline from the latest interim high. This week we came pretty darned close to a 20% slide in S&P 500 (SPX) terms.
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Friday, January 25, 2008
Institutional Selling Goes Opposite to Stock Market Direction / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
Every day, on our paid subscriber website, we show and rate 9 underlying fundamental conditions that are critical relative to rallies and corrections.
This morning, we will share one of them with you ... The rate and trend in Selling by Institutional Investors.
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Thursday, January 24, 2008
The US Debt and Yen Carry Trade Unwinding Time Bomb is About to Explode! / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
Synthetic Dollar Short - Richard Russell and other gold writers talked about a ‘synthetic dollar short' based on debt in 04/5. The thesis is that overly indebted entities will face a day when their loans are called in, and the demand for dollars will rise dramatically, as assets are liquidated to pay off positions/debt.
The often discussed Yen carry trade has a similar mechanism, where lots of Yen have been borrowed for the last 10 years and invested in various markets that yield more than the half percent Japanese interest rates. Big and small investors have taken advantage of this more or less free money, riding the interest rate bonus with little risk – up to now.
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Thursday, January 24, 2008
Investors Lose Relying On Worthless Rating Agencies - Moody's, Fitch and Standard & Poor's / Stock-Markets / Risk Analysis
"The one sure way to prolong a depression is to resist it..." – Walter Lippmann, Sept. 1931
ISN'T MODERN LIFE MARVELLOUS? All risk has vanished, not least for high-risk behavior.
Hence Scott Anthony Gomez Jr., now suing the sheriff of Pueblo County in Colorado . Gomez was able to break out of his jail cell, push up a ceiling tile, and crawl to freedom through the ventilation shafts before slipping and falling 85 feet off the roof of his prison.
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Thursday, January 24, 2008
Global Impact of the US Debt Implosion / Stock-Markets / US Debt
We have written a series articles dating back to March 2007 tracking the US debt implosion, which are available here . The story started out in early 2007 with the blowout of Novastar and New Century, the multi-billion non-bank intermediary mortgage brokers. In summer of 2007 we witnessed the collapse of American Home Mortgage, America's largest subprime mortgage issuing bank. Then we saw a series of subprime write-offs amounting to hundreds of $ billions by banks, funds, and institutions around the world. Then the trouble moved up in the chain of the mortgage complex, with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announcing surprising losses.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Corporate Income Tax - Stock Market Investors Enemy Number Two / Stock-Markets / Investing
The Investor's Eye view of politics is a simplistic, practical, dot-connecting approach to sorting things out so that win/win change can be considered. Real World politics is not concerned with such things, and that is one of the most serious problems facing investors today. As outlined in Investment Politics 2008, there are at least ten issues that require government action if we are to maintain our competitive position in the World Economy. Most of these are interrelated and need to be acted upon simultaneously... thus causing a major political dilemma.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Greenspan's Grand Design To Serve the Money Trust - Financial Tsunami Part III / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
The Long-Term Greenspan Agenda
Seven years of Volcker monetary “shock therapy” had ignited a payments crisis across the Third World . Billions of dollars in recycled petrodollar debts loaned by major New York and London banks to finance oil imports after the oil price rises of the 1970's, suddenly became non-payable.
The stage was now set for the next phase in the Rockefeller financial deregulation agenda. It was to come in the form of a revolution in the very nature of what would be considered money—the Greenspan “New Finance” Revolution.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Forecasts for U.S. Stock Markets, Bonds, Metals and more! / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Stock Market and Interest Rates Forecast 2008 / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets
Introduction
The first three weeks of the year started with a BANG and this is set to continue as the public servants wrestle with the consequences of their poor policies. And, instead of creating policies of wealth creation, the result to their decades-long policies of currency debasement and creeping socialism: “Temporary” stimulus plans, front and center with the various public servants trying to outbid each other as to the size of the package.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Expert Views on the Stock Market Credit Crisis and Global Economy / Stock-Markets / Global Financial System
This week we do something a little different in our Outside the Box. Every weekend I get a very information-filled blog called Investment Postcards from Cape Town ( http://www.investmentpostcards .com ) by Dr. Prieur du Plessis. In it he highlights what he thinks is the most important portion of the writings of 10 to 15 analysts from around the world on the state of the economy and investing, and summarizes the news and data. I find it very useful, as Prieur generally finds a lot of interesting pieces that I miss and go on to read in my effort to stay on top of the markets. You can subscribe on your own if you like by activating the subscription option on the blog.
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Long Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares - The Fed Rate Cut Must Succeed! / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
So why am I net long the market here, in the form of the Q's -- Nasdaq 100 Trust Shares (Nasdaq: QQQQ)?Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Use Short Bear Funds to Hedge Crashing Stock Markets / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
With the introduction of the bear fund, analysts and investors have another very valuable tool to review the markets that was not available before. The use of fundamental analysis can provide investors with an inside look at the financial health of a company, its management skills and spot potential difficulties for the organization in the near future. Technical analysis allows the investor to review large numbers of securities, in different time frames, for profit opportunities, but normally only from one perspective; the buy side. The bear fund offers that mirrored image of a security that when used properly, can greatly expands the investors vantage point and provide valuable data that is not available through simple fundamental reviews or only buy-side technical analysis.
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Retrospective: The Mysterious Case of Massive Liquidity / Stock-Markets / Money Supply
“ Perhaps when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand. ” — Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (1904)
It now seems so long ago, but it is only a year since global equity markets were entrenched in a relentless march upward, spurred by the “world growth story” and a wave of global liquidity. U.S. and European stock markets gained double-digit returns in 2006 while the emerging markets did even better. Alongside the upward trajectory came a remarkable decline in volatility with the VIX, known as the “fear gauge,” falling to 13-year lows in November and December that same year.
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Dow Jones Stock Market Diamond Pattern Formation / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
At first glance at the title above, because of the proliferation of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF's), with Dow Diamonds one of the most highly traded examples, one might think a discussion on the related subject matter is what we intend to talk about here today. Of course if you were an experienced market technician, and have been following the trade of late, you might have known right away this is not the case at all. You would have known what we are talking about is a technical formation in the trade that acts as a pivot at tops, usually in relation to larger degree trading ranges. And you also may have known that the Dow is almost finished tracing out another diamond at present, with the timing and circumstances when compared to the 1999 / 2000 sequence similar enough to take notice.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, January 21, 2008
US Stock Markets - Near Term Bottom or Waterfall Crash? / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
Hauntingly Familiar
Here we are once again, suddenly embroiled amid a frenzy of financial crisis, and looming bail-out interventions.
The jury is still out as to whether or not this crisis will turn out to be “the big one” that will take down the entire house of cards.
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