Friends Yes, it was a very difficult month for stocks, but today’s rally takes away a little bit of the sting. First we had news out of Japan overnight that they are pivoting to a negative interest rate policy. Don’t be startled, interest rates are negative in other...

Friends The seesaw week continues. Down Monday, up Tuesday, down Wednesday, now up today. Good earnings reports from Under Armour and Facebook seemed to light the fire at the opening, and that combined with oil rallying for the second day in a row led to solid gains...

Friends The markets looked to the Fed today for guidance, but came away more confused than before. Some Fed watchers were concerned that the FOMC didn’t back off the “tough talk” and kept interest rate increases on the table for 2016. Other’s interpreted the FOMC...

Friends Oil and stocks went hand in hand once again today, but this time both moved to the upside as opposed to yesterday’s drubbing. As we have seen so far in 2016 the oil market and the stock market appear to be connected at the hip. After an awful session for...

Friends Traders seemed to not have much interest today as stocks spent the first half of the trading session drifting in modestly negative territory. But as the day wore on, and oil gave up some of last week’s dead cat bounce, stocks fell further into negative...

Friends As expected, because of the snow storm on the east coast, trading was light today and volatility was minimal. Once again we have somewhat of a mixed picture as the Dow seems to have a component or two that disappoints every day, dragging the average down,...

Friends For a second day in a row we got a rally in oil, and today’s was even better. There’s no certainty that if oil has bottomed then stocks have bottomed, but in recent trading, stocks have been moving lock step with oil. Now, of course, we have no idea if we have...

Friends Well my reverse psychology on oil seemed to work. We finally got a bounce in crude prices after it appeared that oil would not stop going down until it hit zero. Along with the bounce in crude, stock prices also staged a rally, gave it back, and then climbed...

Friends You know that you’re in a bear market when a Dow down 249 points actually feels good. Yes, actually after a 566 point drop in the Dow, either sellers just ran out of gas, or perhaps a few brave souls decided to buy something. After all, the early morning...

Friends Failed rallies are a signature of a bear market. Though we haven’t seen many so far this year, when we have gotten a rally it is quickly met with more selling. Once again, oil was pointed to for today’s failure as a 200 point early Dow gain quickly dissipated...

Friends There was nothing on the economic front that would necessarily affect the direction of stocks today. The Philly Fed Survey showed improvement in conditions in the mid-Atlantic manufacturing, but new orders were disappointing. The CPI number came in as...

Friends Unfortunately, the bounce we saw yesterday, quickly disappeared at the opening this morning as the bears are firmly in control of the situation at the moment. Sentiment has turned decidedly negative, as economic data is weak (today’s PPI indicating that...

Friends Well that’s a little better. We finally got ourselves a little bounce, and we certainly were overdue for it. After a sloppy start to the day, stocks reversed a losing hand as the morning wore on and by afternoon we found ourselves with some tasty gains...

Friends Another difficult day of trading. Stocks tried to rally early in the day, but by late morning, we were in the red and falling. After a pause in the late afternoon, stocks drifted further into negative territory, tacking on to the miserable start for 2016. When...