Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Tuesday, August 28, 2007
What to Do Next : 5 FInancial Alternatives To Stocks For These Volatile Times / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets
In the financial markets, all we know for sure is that nothing's for sure.
The way I see it, financially speaking the stock market doesn't appear to be the place to be right now. Stocks have retreated in recent weeks, but they certainly could go lower, possibly a lot lower. For the foreseeable future, I plan to steer clear of most stocks, investment real estate and any bond below investment grade.
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Monday, August 27, 2007
NOLTE NOTES - The Situation Today is Temporary / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets
It is not often Peggy Lee and Wall Street meet, however the market action of the past six weeks begs the question posed by Ms. Lee – Is that all there is? If that is all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing! And stocks did just that, dancing higher as the concerns over housing, sub-prime loans and a liquidity crunch became mere memories. The SP500 is merely a percent away from the closing level of June and three from the May peak.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 27, 2007
Volatility As a Stock Market Indicator / Stock-Markets / Volatility
Investors seeking to beat the stock market are always looking for a way to help predict the trends that lead to profits. The movements up and down create opportunities for investors and traders. They also create serious risks and can cause investors to panic and sell at the wrong time. Knowing how use this volatility can help investors improve their performance.
What is Volatility?Volatility is a measure of dispersion around the mean or average return of a security. While there are several ways to measure volatility one of the most common is to use the statistical measure called the standard deviation. A standard deviation tells an observer of a stock or index how tightly grouped it is around an average, such as the moving average. A small standard deviation means the price is tightly bunched together. A large standard deviation means the price is spread apart.
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Monday, August 27, 2007
MPTrader - Nasdaq's (Q's) Decline Unimpressive / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
Thus far today the fact that the Q's (Nasdaq: QQQQ) are down about $0.30 is not very impressive if you are looking for some give-back after last week's powerful advance. Put another way, the Q's are holding up extremely well, as if there is very little impetus to bank last week's advance.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 27, 2007
Stock and Financial Markets Crash - Final Warning! / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
Martin Weiss writes: This is your final warning.
The tempest Mike Larson and I have been warning you about is here, and the time for protective action is now.
To see the storm, you no longer need the flat-screen window to the world that you get each day from CNBC or CNN. You don't even require the time telescope we've been giving you in Money and Markets .
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Monday, August 27, 2007
Market Efficiency Hokum / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation
You know the story triumphantly heard in the West. Markets work best when governments let them operate freely - unconstrained by rules, regulations and taxes about which noted economist Milton Friedman once said in an interview he was "in favor of cutting....under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible (because) the big problem is not taxes (but government) spending.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, August 27, 2007
Stock Market Cycle Turning Points Analysis 27th August 2007 / Stock-Markets / Cycles Analysis
Current Position of the Market.
SPX: Long-Term Trend - The 12-yr cycle is still in its up-phase but, as we approach its mid-point, some of its dominant components are topping and could lead to another correction in 2008.
SPX: Intermediate Trend - Climactic action followed by an immediate reversal suggests that the 4.5-yr cycle has bottomed, but the low will need to be tested.
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Saturday, August 25, 2007
Stock Market Update: And the Beat Goes On… / Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets
Discipline and patience is what you need to trade a market like we saw this past week, if you trade it at all – the discipline to focus on what the market's saying is important, and the patience to let the trade set up. The past few updates have emphasized staying flat in a choppy, sloppy, trendless market, if no other reason than to wait for a clear trade. I made that point in a chart on Friday, just as we were getting ready to buy one of the only real moves of the week.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 25, 2007
The Stock Market Battle Rages as the Chickens come Home to Roost / Stock-Markets / Cycles Analysis
The battle between the natural forces of the market and the desire to prevent these natural forces from occurring has now moved to a new level. Up until recently, these efforts were more subtle and more traditional. We are now seeing an outright campaign to keep the market afloat. As I see it, these efforts do not instill confidence, but rather go to show just how desperate the situation with the market truly is.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Stock Market Crash - October 21 Again? / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
Dear Readers, You saw our article " AUGUST AGAIN ". Needless to say it was prophetically precise.
I am almost scared to put this new chart up there. Nothing in the chart suggests 1987 style crash, but I can not help it... the dates, the the timing, the cycles...
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Friday, August 24, 2007
The 2007 Credit Crunch Liquidity Crisis - Q&A / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
In lieu of my usual column, I've opted for a co-authored, in-depth analysis of the current liquidity crisis. Despite the fact that the media would prefer to ignore it and focus on the various bailouts being planned or executed, this is a crisis that still poses a very real threat to the economic and banking systems of the world.
Is the current stock market correction a healthy correction, or the start of a bear market?
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Friday, August 24, 2007
Business Cycle Points to Stage 6 Stocks and Commodities Bear Market / Stock-Markets / Business Cycles
The Normal Business Cycle
As refined by Martin Pring in his book The All-Season Investor , economic and stock
cycles can be broken down into stages. The complete normal business cycle usually
lasts approximately 42 - 54 months, but this typical length can be altered by monetary
policy. Business activity goes from the despair of the depths of recession to the
euphoria of the peaks of business expansion and back again.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Stock Market Gyrations and the “Yen Carry” Trade / Stock-Markets / Yen Carry Trade
For long-term buy and hold investors in the US stock market, who simply sit through wild market gyrations, it's good to know that you have “Plunge Protection Insurance.” The dynamic duo of US Treasury chief Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chief Ben “B-52” Bernanke are working overtime these days, and using all the weapons in their arsenal to prevent a bear market from materializing, while Wall Street faces its worst financial crisis in many decades.“I asked Chairman Bernanke if he would use all the tools available to him and he said, Absolutely,” said US Senator Christopher Dodd on Aug 21st, after a meeting with Paulson and Bernanke, the top commanders of the “Plunge Protection Team” (PPT). “Historically the federal funds rate has tended to follow movements in the discount rate,” Dodd added, alluding to the PPT's most potent weapon.
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Thursday, August 23, 2007
Will Credit Crunch Crisis Calm Down Before The Real Stock Market Crash ? / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
After basically being up on and off 24/7 for two weeks – I am amazed at the speed of the onset of the credit crisis. I also had a feeling last night, thinking about all this chaos, that it is rather bizarre. Weird and eerie is another view. There is no doubt that we have seen real fear like never since 1929 in credit markets. That almost spread to equities, with some scary drops – like 600 and 800 point down days in the Hang Seng and the Nikkei.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Pullback in the Nasdaq (Q's) / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
Let's notice that after marginally breaking above key resistance at 47.80-48, the Q's (NASDAQ: QQQQ) pivoted to the downside this morning (prior to testing the 62% recovery level at 48.25/30), and since have declined to test the minor support line at 47.20 created during the past week's action. Judging from both the micro pattern carved-out off of the 48.04 high and the juxtaposition of the hourly RSI momentum gauge, the Q's likely will break 47.20 on the way to 47.00-46.80 in the upcoming hours, at which time we will have to re-evaluate the composite technical picture to determine if a minor pullback is complete, or if additional correction is necessary.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Investment Flash: Bull Market in Cash / Stock-Markets / US Bonds
It looks as if the Summer of 1929 , has finally past. We are now experiencing " forced selling and unwinding of leverage on assets " that we stated would follow.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Dow Theory Stock Market Sell Signal - Into The Breach / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
The stock market triggered a Dow Theory sell signal Friday, with both the Dow and Transports closing below June lows, and new lows for the move. Now we have confirmation from a very reliable indicator the stock market is in real trouble to go along with our own observations last week. In relation to this, speculators continued to take put / call ratios down on Thursday, which was part of the reason stocks fell Friday. Just how big a factor put / call ratios are right now is uncertain however, because premiums for puts close to the money doubled Friday, showing extreme pessimism readings not seen by this observer in quite some time. What's more, put positions that matter (on the S&P 500) still outnumber calls almost 2 to 1 (when the SPY and SPX series are added together), so in spite of a possible route in the first few days of this week, I am still hoping for a rally back above 1500 at some point believe it or not. But if put / call ratios keep falling like they have been, with the SPX series down to 1.76 as of last Thursday, I'm not likely to get my wish.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Fear in the Streets – A Dress Rehearsal / Stock-Markets / Financial Crash
As we write this article it appears that fear is abating and that the financial markets are getting back to business as usual. Nevertheless, one major piece of bad news could send the markets tumbling once again. So, have we just witnessed the worst of the market decline s or was this just a dress rehearsal for a much more severe and perhaps catastrophic decline ahead ? None of us ha s a crystal ball going forward from here, but we as investors continue to seek opportunities always aware of the potential short term downside risk.
So, we ask the question; what have we learned from the action of the markets as the volatility occurred?
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Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Can the Nasdaq (Q's) Penetrate Resistance? / Stock-Markets / Tech Stocks
This morning's strength in the Q's (Nasdaq: QQQQ) propelled the price structure into a major resistance band between 47 and 47.90, as well as towards a confrontation with the July-August down trendline, now at 47.95, which I think will prove to be impenetrable in the absence either of a surprise cut in the Fed funds rate OR a pullback into the 46.50 area first. It is with that in mind that I hold a 50% short position in the Q's in our model portfolio against my other long positions as a "speculative" hedge (how's that for an oxymoronic phrase?) in the upcoming hours.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Financial Markets Discussion and Update of the HUI Gold Bugs Index / Stock-Markets / Credit Crunch
The sub prime debt market is huge and the pile or associated derivatives is larger (some 450 trillion), mostly in US Dollar. If cash injection is required to stabilize things, it is likely that the US Dollar(as per the charts) remains buoyant until mid to late 2009 before finally collapsing below 80 in one fowl swoop (pun intended, the USD is a dead duck, just a matter of time). The USD still is the reserve currency of the world and once the USD prints an equivalent amount of paper to reduce the global holdings of banks to 30-40% of the total paper, then it will be dumped.Read full article... Read full article...