Friends Stocks drifted into negative territory around the mid-point of the trading session, then spent the rest of the afternoon easing slightly lower. Today’s economic data was less than inspiring as the Chicago PMI was awful, showing contraction in November. The...
Friends As expected, it has been a very quiet week for the stock market. Stocks traded slightly in positive territory for what seemed like the entire session as volatility was virtually non-existent. On the economic font both the jobless claims number and the durable...
Friends Despite more global tensions, today sparked by a downed Russian fighter jet by Turkish forces, stocks once again showed remarkable resiliency. After being down more than 100 Dow points, stock reversed course and spent the afternoon slightly in positive...
Friends If today was any indication, we might be in for a quiet holiday shortened week of trading. Traders didn’t seem to have much interest in the proceedings, and we are still a few weeks out before the FOMC meeting is front and center. Until then, a mega merger or...
Friends It was a tale of two weeks. After last week’s carnage in the stock market (the S&P 500 fell about 3%), this week’s 3% rise was a welcome surprise especially given the fact that last weekend we had to endure the aftermath of last Friday’s terrorist attacks....
Friends Neither the bulls nor the bears seemed to be able to muster much of an advance today as stocks mostly waffled back and forth around the break-even mark for the entire trading session. It has been quite a couple of weeks of trading, so a little breather may...
Friends It appears that the bulls were able to recapture the rally that they were so rudely deprived of yesterday, as share prices stretched further and further into positive territory as the trading session wore on. No, we did not have a terrorist scare at a soccer...
Friends We were well on the way to tacking on nicely to yesterday’s gains in the stock market, when word came of an evacuation of a soccer stadium in Germany because of a possible terrorist attack. Buyers evacuated the market’s playing field as quickly as fans...
Friends After last week’s miserable market action and the horrible terrorist’s events in Paris on Friday evening, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you thought we might have a pretty ugly market to deal with this morning. On the contrary. Though we started somewhat slow...
Friends All the hard work the bulls did in October and the first couple days of November seem to have been for naught. Stocks continue to give back those gains and fall back into negative territory for the year. The retail sector is a disaster, energy is tumbling...
Friends The stock market seems determined to give back all the hard earned gains from October and early November. Indeed, since the surprisingly good jobs report, we have experienced nothing but falling share prices. One might almost conclude that market participants...
Friends With the banks being closed today (and thus the bond market), the stock market was somewhat quiet other than the bloodbath in retail shares (led by a difficult earnings report from Macy’s). Analysts seem to think that the consumer is strapped. I think it’s...
Friends Market participants had time over the weekend to consider Friday’s jobs report, the recent earnings season and the possibility/likelihood that the Fed begins to raise rates in December. It seems that they have some concerns. Stocks were down right from the...
Friends This morning’s job report was a stunner. The non-farm payroll number came in much higher than expected with 271,000 new jobs created in October. The unemployment rate fell to 5% which was about as expected, but most importantly the average hourly earnings...
Friends Market participants seemed content to sit on their hands today while waiting for tomorrow’s non-farm payroll number. Stocks drifted aimlessly for most of the trading session, never really showing any real propensity to rise or fall. Jobs reports are always...
