Friends On this final day of April, the economic news was somewhat mixed. On the negative side of the ledger the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) was dreadful, while on the positive side of the ledger the consumer confidence number was better than expected....

Friends For the most part, Monday’s have been disastrous all year long. That is not uncommon when you consider the bull market move we have seen in stocks. Basically, that reasoning goes that the doubters come in at the beginning of the week certain that this week is...

Friends Well that was disappointing. Today’s first look (yes, there are a couple of revisions to come) at 1st quarter GDP was a bit of a downer. Most economists were expecting that the economy had grown at 3% or more in the quarter, making up for the disastrous 4th...

Friends Now we have earnings coming at us full force, and despite a drumbeat of negative outlooks, stocks continue to claw their way higher. The theme so far this quarter is a familiar one, meet or beat on the bottom line but miss on the top line. The stocks that...

Friends Earnings are definitely moving stocks this week, but in sometimes confusing directions. For example, YUM Brands (Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut) was struggling mightily into its earnings report yesterday afternoon, but rallied hard today after posting a “not as...

Friends As earnings season is in full force, stocks seem to be reacting fairly well to somewhat mundane earnings reports. Led by reports from the likes of DuPont, Netflix and Coach, stocks traded higher right at the open this morning and held gains for most of the...

Friends After last week’s more than 2% drop in the stock market, fueled by more “lukewarm” earnings reports, stocks opened to the downside again today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 90 points in early trading. But as the day wore on, shares of...

Friends Earnings season is in full force now, (we get Google and IBM after the close today) and despite some pretty darn good reports, stocks still look rather disheveled. For the third day this week the market ended in negative territory, and yes we did rally off the...

Friends Well, well, volatility has returned. For about 5 months we had nice deliberate upward bias to stocks. Things seem to have changed just a bit. Down big on Monday, up big yesterday, and back down big today. Yes, we did recover some, as the Dow was down almost...

Friends Because of yesterday’s tragedy in Boston, the markets took a back seat, but as we mentioned there was a lot of action especially in gold, which had it largest one day drop in 30 years. Stocks also had a miserable day yesterday, but today bargain hunters did a...

Friends I was ready to describe to you the mess that was the markets today, but then just before 2:00 our time the explosions in Boston took place. It’s just hard to see a wonderful event like the Boston Marathon on Patriot’s Day marred by useless violence. As for...

Friends The market had a lot of headwinds to deal with today. First of all, two major banks reported what was eventually interpreted as slightly disappointing earnings. Then, on the economic front, the retail sales number was not good. The PPI number was benign, but...

Friends An improved weekly jobless claims number helped lift stocks in early trading, and the averages were able to hang on to the gains for the remainder of the session. As we mentioned, it was going to be a quiet news week until Friday, so we expect tomorrow’s...

Friends As we mentioned yesterday, there is not a lot of economic news until Friday, and that is leaving traders feeling a little frisky, as they continue to bid up the prices of stocks. Finally, this week we are seeing a bit of a rotation from the “defensive” in...