When you factor out the hurricanes that hit the United States in September and the rantings / actions of the newly nicknamed despot; Rocket Man in North Korea, the equity markets have held in like a champ. It may seem to many that September was a boring month. However, as investors know, boring can be […]
The devastation of Hurricane Harvey was a prelude to the devastation of Hurricane Irma. Of course, we spent a good deal of the last few days checking on family and friends who (in my opinion, foolishly) stayed behind in Florida. Everyone appears to be well but in the dark. Thursday I ran several financial simulations […]
With the election in the rear view mirror, uncertainty has morphed into action. The bond market which was beginning to crack, has experienced heavy selling. Yields on the 10-year and 30-year US treasury bond issues have jumped nearly 50 basis points in the last week. This has implications for both investors and mortgage rates. While […]
The markets drifted lower again but nothing of major consequence. Apple (AAPL) held its worldwide developers conference or WWDC. While that is really a means of delivering information to developers, it has become another platform for Apple to reveal updates and product changes. Yesterday was no different as Apple unveiled a streaming music service and […]
Alcoa (AA) results and positive economic data helped to set up a strong open. By 10:30AM the Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) rose 1.15%. This, according to my own research, kicked in my 1% Rule Trade. 1% Trade Rule Was Successful The 1% Rule Trade has the following parameters. If at 10:30AM the S&P 500 […]
The markets traded like a teeter totter yesterday – up, down, up – and managed to finish slightly in the plus column. Other than earnings from Hewlett-Packard and the news that Carl Icahn has amassed a 8% stake in Hertz Global Holdings (HTZ), there was not much news overnight. This morning’s market news is also […]
Earnings season kicks off in earnest today with the first round of earnings being reported by financial services companies. Citicorp (C) already reported better than expected earnings and a $7 billion mortgage settlement with the US Justice Department. Tomorrow Goldman Sachs (GS) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) will report. Bank of America (BAC), Blackrock (BLK) […]
After a long and I would add pleasant Memorial Day weekend, we wake up to some pleasant news. To begin with, the S&P 500 (SPX) closed last week above 1,900 for the first time ever. A pro-European candidate, billionaire Petro Poroshenko won the Ukraine election. While in Europe, anti-Europe parties also won elections. In France, […]
All that I could think of yesterday for most of the session was the Boomtown Rats’ song “I Don’t Like Mondays.” They were shooting the whole day down. A Day of Pain and Pleasure But Mostly Pain A positive opening quickly brought on the tech and growth haters who sold the market off hard. Eventually […]
The bulls fumbled the ball just as they got it, giving the bears ample opportunity to rout the market again. There was no real news to support any selling. Instead we actually got some positive news from the weekly jobless claims. It just seemed that bond buyers were active, biotechs continued their decent and took […]
