Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Monday, February 13, 2012

The ECB's Long Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) is Bullish for Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Money_Morning

Jack Barnes writes: If you listen to the talking heads, there is no end in sight to the Euro crisis.

Even with the European Central Bank's (ECB) recent Long Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO), Greece is still making all the headlines.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Four Signs of a Short-Term Drop in Stocks / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: DailyWealth

Jeff Clark writes: The stock market is showing multiple signs of a short-term top.

That doesn't mean stocks have to go down right away. Topping is a process – not a one-day event.

Monday, February 13, 2012

SP500 Deflated by Gold / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Jesse

Much of the recent rally, that nominally looks like a straight shot higher is really due to the monetization going on in the US and Europe.

Such distribution of money through asset bubbles can provide the appearance of vitality, but it is not self-sustaining.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Stock Market Top Are We There Yet? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Andre_Gratian

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, there will be another steep and prolonged decline into 2014.

SPX: Intermediate trend - Intermediate uptrend still intact, but short-term top imminent.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Why Does The Stock Market Keep Rising? / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: LongWave

This gigantic flood of extremely inexpensive high-powered money does have a major impact, not in the real economy, but in the liquid investment markets. 

Free money sets a very low hurdle for a short-term investment and as long as the transaction has decent liquidity, why not do the trade.  As a result, almost every equity, commodity, and credit market is moving higher. 

High beta currencies are moving higher as well, as risk is clearly on the front foot.  This positive mood began at the start of October, a bit more than a week after Bernanke announced the start of ‘Operation Twist,’ a subtle way to improve the profits of the banks and increase the risk of the Fed without expanding its balance sheet.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Return of Stock Market Volatility / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Clif_Droke

To say that complacency has reigned in the last few months is an understatement. Volatility as measured by the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) has fallen 60% since October and 20% since the start of 2012.

To put into context just how much volatility has fallen since the latest rally kicked off in October, the 10-year chart of the S&P 100 Volatility Index (VXO) is shown below. The VXO is an excellent frame of reference for the absence of widespread fear in this market in recent months. As you can see, volatility is approaching historically low levels not seen since before the credit crisis began.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Stock Market Uptrend Nearing a Top / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Tony_Caldaro

The US market was fairly quiet this week while trading in a narrow SPX 1336-1354 range. It did manage to reach marginal new uptrend highs on three of the days, but ended the week mixed. For the week the SPX/DOW were -0.35%, and the NDX/NAZ were mixed. Asian markets gained 0.3%, European markets lost 0.9%, and the DJ World index was -0.3%. Economic reports for the week were light, with results mixed. On the uptick: wholesale inventories, the monetary base, the WLEI, plus the budget deficit and weekly jobless claims improved. On the downtick: consumer credit, the M1 multiplier, the trade deficit, and consumer sentiment. Next week, options expiration week, we’ll get reports on retail sales, industrial production, the CPI/PPI and the FOMC minutes.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Stock Market Locked and Loaded / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: WavePatternTraders

Once again the freight train that is the US stock markets continues to push on higher, although there were some potential vital clues on Friday and something's that we are watching closely.

The risk FX pairs I like to follow showed some important price action that could be a vital clue for a reversal.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Finally Some Selling From Extremes Of Overbought..... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Jack_Steiman

Not a single soul should be shocked by the fact that we sold off some today. The market had been extremely overbought for quite some time. The Nasdaq, and small caps, had gotten absurdly overbought on their daily RSI's, with readings at 80 plus. That's basically unheard of, folks. It's been a long time between visits to this territory for any part of the market. It makes sense that it would happen in froth-land, otherwise known as the technology world of the Nasdaq. Froth leads when things get silly to the upside for our stock market. People want to participate in those rapid moving high beta stocks when the market is rising, because they want to capture as much upside as humanly possible. Get me those points. Don't give me those slower moving safer stocks. Give me beta or give me.....!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Stock Market Friday Profit Taking / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: PhilStockWorld

Courtesy of Doug Short writes: The S&P 500 dropped at the open and hit a mid-morning low of -1.08%. The index then oscillated across a six-point range and closed the day near the range high for loss of 0.69% and a fractional loss of 0.17% for the week. It was, in fact, the first negative weekly close of 2012 after five consecutive weekly gains. The index is up 6.76% year-to-date and is 1.56% below its interim high at the end of April 2011.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Should Stock Market Investors Worry About February’s Reputation? / Stock-Markets / Seasonal Trends

By: Sy_Harding

Most investors are aware of the market’s various seasonal patterns.

In the Four-Year Presidential Cycle the market has a strong tendency to be positive in the last two years of each Presidential term. Within each year it tends to make most of its gains in its annual favorable season between October and May. Shorter term, it tends to be positive in the few days surrounding the end of each month.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Stock Market Upleg Has Room to Run / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Zeal_LLC

The US stock markets have been on fire lately, still marching higher even after the S&P 500 powered to its best January in 15 years.  Doubted from its very birth, this latest stock-market upleg continues to inexorably climb the proverbial Wall of Worry.  But while bears keep on arguing for its imminent demise, today’s upleg actually still has plenty of room to run higher.  Despite the naysayers, it isn’t too late to buy in yet.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Superb Investor Opportunities Created by 3 False Premises / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012

By: DeepCaster_LLC

“In one of the most shamefully disingenuous reports we’ve seen in years, the US Labor Department released the latest employment figures on Friday showing that the headline US unemployment rate had fallen to 8.3%.

“Champagne and sound bites were pre-positioned in Washington as the self-congratulatory praise flowed like the bubbly. President Obama, beaming like he’d just caught the winning touchdown pass, told the American people on Sunday that he ‘deserved’ a second term.

Thursday, February 09, 2012

The Next Big Asian Emerging Market / Stock-Markets / Asian Economies

By: DailyWealth

Chris Mayer writes: "It's like Thailand was 50 years ago," Alexandre de Lesseps told me.

We were talking about the next big emerging market to bloom in Asia. It may surprise you, but it is one heck of a story... and opportunity. It's also the subject of my upcoming book, World Right Side Up. The country I'm talking about is Myanmar (or Burma, as most people still seem to call it).

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Money Market Funds Are in the Fight of Their Lives / Stock-Markets / Credit Crisis 2012

By: Money_Morning

Shah Gilani writes: Money market funds aren't exactly the safe-haven investments they're cracked up to be.

In September 2008, when Lehman Brothers failed, money market investors fled funds in droves, exposing investors and capital markets across the globe to huge systemic risks.

Now, to better safeguard investors and prevent the commercial paper market from shutting down in future crises, SEC chairwoman Mary Schapiro is proposing to re-make the money market mutual fund industry in the image of banks.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Stock Market Hanging Very Tough / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2012

By: Jack_Steiman

You have to hand it to the bulls as they just refuse to give up the gains in this market. For now, anyway. You have to wonder how long they can hold things up this well into very overbought conditions on the daily index charts. The market tried a few times to sell things down, but it refused to cave in. The folks on the side lines that have missed a lot of this move are anxious to get in on any weakness, thus, the bears are having a rough time keeping things down. It'll happen at some point for the bears. It's impossible to time it, because the buy-the-dip mentality is still on.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Do Low Interest Rates Power Stock Markets Higher? / Stock-Markets / Learning to Invest

By: EWI

Back in the day, one of the first things I "learned" about investing was that low or declining interest rates are good for stock prices.

I've since had to "unlearn" this.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Markets Risk Train Chugs Along, Overbought Does Not Mean a Correction is Coming / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012

By: Capital3X

This market has been overbought since mid January 2012 and it has shown very little signs of slowing down leave alone reversal. The action post Ben speech yesterday was another breakout and this time unless its fake in which case we will know in the next 48 hours, this train is picking up speed. While we were not along in fading this market in feb but we have quickly reversed positions with strong evidence (laid below) of a new wave of risk buying if we get through key levels and days (feb 9 is imp day)

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

How Corporate Debt Deleveraging Looks / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2012

By: Tony_Pallotta

I found an interesting pattern in studying corporate debt. Specifically yield spreads which is the difference between investment grade and below investment grade yield. As investors grow risk averse they prefer to move to the safety of investment grade debt thus driving yields lower. They do this buy selling below investment grade debt thus driving yields higher. The result are higher spreads.

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Timing the Market: Predicting When the FED Will Act Next (Feb 12) / Stock-Markets / Inflation

By: Chris_Riley

Sadly, we have reached the point where markets are largely driven by government & central bank action. Their principle policy tool is monetary easing, which is used to shoot-up markets, against a market driven backdrop of de-levering. So in order to predict what the actors are likely to do, we need to understand the political constraints & incentives that they find themselves under: the principle actors being the central bankers and their politician friends.