Friends Market participants appeared to be distracted by the inauguration proceedings as stocks, after an early lift, basically just drifted aimlessly for the balance of the trading session. We did get a second little lift at the close, so stocks ended with nice...

Friends Traders continue to have a case of the jitters as we approach the Presidential Inauguration. Dow 20,000 talk has all but dissipated as the industrial average continues to slip further and further away from that historic but somewhat meaningless level. The...

Friends As we get closer to Friday's inauguration, traders seem to be getting a bit more jittery. The expectations/hopes of a vigorous new spending and tax reduction agenda is becoming a bit more cloudy as the realization that Congress has to make all this happen is...

Friends Earnings season got off to a good start this morning as a bevy of money center banks reported their 4th quarter earnings. The likes of J P Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo all had stellar reports, and the good environment for banks has only begun...

Friends Between Senate hearings for Trump nominees and a wild press conference with the President elect himself, traders had a lot of political noise to deal with during today's trading session. As we wait for earnings season to kick off, the political winds are...

Friends Another very quiet day of trading as stocks seem to be stuck in time, seemingly at once just a nice afternoon rally away from Dow 20,000, and a market that seems 20,000 miles away from Dow 20,000.  For weeks now, rallies have stalled out quickly, yet selloffs...

Friends Stocks made a gallant effort to capture the Dow 20,000 level throughout the afternoon portion of the trading session (coming within a couple of points), but the bulls just couldn't mount a final surge to finish the job. This morning's jobs number was a little...

Friends It was a strange day for stocks. First, before the opening, the ADP private payroll number came in a bit weaker than expected which sets the stage for tomorrow's non-farm payroll number. The consensus estimate for tomorrow is that about 175,000 new jobs were...

Friends The stock market added to yesterday's gains today, as the fears that market participants were waiting for the calendar to turn over to sell winners and put pressure on the market has begun to dissipate. The theory was that individuals were waiting to take...

Friends We hope everyone had a great holiday season. As for today, it looked like traders came in all fired up to buy some stocks this morning but after the first hour of trading the rally lost its sizzle. The Dow's 170 point rally quickly dissipated and stocks fell...

Friends Wow, what a year. I can't wait to write about it all in our 1st quarter outlook piece. For today, we'll just say that the buyers disappeared these last couple of weeks, and stocks limped into year end. After an historic first 5 weeks of the year (and not...

Friends It appears that Santa is unable to deliver the much anticipated year-end rally that was to propel the Dow past 20,000. Volume has dried up and buyers have all but disappeared. No, there hasn't been an overwhelming amount of selling (see the light volume) but...

Friends I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. The markets continue to be extremely quiet as we head towards the year end. There was virtually no action of any sort today. Trading was light and volatility was nonexistent.  On the economic front the consumer confidence...