Friends The Fed minutes released today indicated that they will be concluding the quantitative easing program in October. So, yes, the taper should remain on schedule and the punch bowl will finally be taken away. Now, that does not mean that they intend to raise...

Friends If the often predicted correction in stocks is finally upon us, no one told traders today. Stocks had an upward bias from the start despite the fact that President Obama had announced last evening that there would be military air strikes in Iraq. As the...

Friends Today’s action reminds me a little of earlier in the year when the high flying momentum stocks lost some of their luster. We saw these same types of stocks feel the brunt of today’s selling. NASDAQ was down well over 1% for the session while the Dow and the...

Friends After last week’s economic fireworks, we begin to focus on earnings season and how companies are faring in this confusing environment. Remember, there were a whole lot of excuses about bad weather in the first quarter, and that won’t fly in the second quarter....

Friends The jobs report was impressive. 288,000 new jobs were created in June vs. the consensus estimate of 211,000. The unemployment rate fell to 6.1%. For all the flack that the Federal Reserve has taken, one must admit that we have been creating jobs in this...

Friends Well after yesterday’s move, trading was back to the 2014 norm, as volume was light, volatility was virtually non-existent and stocks drifted aimlessly throughout the session. This morning’s ADP private sector employment number was much better than expected,...

Friends Wow, the bulls caught the bears flat footed on this first trading session of the 3rd quarter, and pushed stocks decisively higher. After 51 trading days without a move of 1% or more, today’s action looked like that streak could be broken. Well that didn’t...