Friends The big news this week is the potential extension of the Bush tax cuts, which President Obama and some members of Congress seem to have agreed on. This gave the Santa Claus rally a little extra juice early in the week, but as House Democrats made their opinion...
Friends How about that! Stocks ended the day on a positive note with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending the day at 11,381 up 19 points. The S&P 500 was up 3 points to end the day at 1224. On a day when stocks could have fallen quite a bit, the market showed...
Friends I hope everyone had a very nice Thanksgiving. Today marks the end of the month of November, so I thought I would pass on our thoughts for the month just ended, and take a look at what lies ahead of us. Stocks are ending the month virtually unchanged as...
Friends Bad news just overwhelmed the stock market on Tuesday, as the dust up in Korea combined with continuing European debt worries made up the problematic macro picture. On the domestic level, the continuing FBI probe into insider trading at many of the larger...
Friends The big news this week was the General Motors IPO (initial public offering) and basically it totally consumed the media and the market on Thursday. In general, the offering was a success, as the price came at the high-end of the expected range ($33) and...
Friends After yesterday’s failure to hold a 100 point rally in the Dow, the markets faced a barrage of difficult news this morning. First, China had a sizable drop overnight and then the continued European debt problems provided the fuel for an early morning selloff....
Friends, Well, the euphoria of last week’s election and Fed announcement sure did wear off this week. Both stocks and bonds have had a difficult week, and as has been the case in recent times, the direction of the dollar is the determining factor. Last night we got...
Friends Well traders sure did choose a side yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up over 219 points on Thursday as the bears were caught waiting for the “sell the news” effect and got just the opposite. The just released jobs number came in better than...
Friends, Although politics is what is on everyone’s mind today, I would first like to comment on the very important Federal Reserve announcement. Dr. Bernanke again declared that the Fed is “all in” and will do whatever is necessary to make asset prices rise...
Friends Well, are you ready for the coming week? It should be very eventful. On Tuesday, of course, we have mid-term elections. On Wednesday, we get a clue as to what the Federal Reserve intends to do with regard to “Quantitative Easing” and then on Friday, we get the...
Friends The last four quarters remind me of the movie Groundhog Day, where the same scene plays itself out over and over again. In our case, the scene is earnings season. Share prices seem to rise before earnings are released, and then sell off for a day or two after...
Friends Quite a wild day in the market today. After the close yesterday, we got earnings from tech giants IBM and Apple. Though both beat published estimates and had very good revenues, their shares sold off in after-hours trading and continued down this morning. You...
As I listen to the Federal Reserve Chairman speak this morning, it becomes more clear that the Fed is determined to do anything necessary to prevent the economy from slowing even further. Dr. Bernanke is making it clear that even though they are considering...
Friends, The unemployment number was just released this morning and the more things change, the more they stay the same. Yes, we did create a few private sector jobs, but the overall job loss was again disturbing, and a 9.6% unemployment rate will continue to weigh on...
Friends As I mentioned yesterday, the market just finished the best September that we have had in nearly 70 years. The third quarter was also a good one for the market averages. With that behind us, where does the market go from here? The coming quarter will be...
