Friends This morning's jobs report was met by traders with a collective yawn. 161,000 new jobs were created in October which was a little shy of expectations, but both August and September were revised upward. The unemployment rate moved back down to 4.9%, while the...

Friends Stocks continued their downward slide today, albeit at a very deliberate pace, as technical conditions continue to deteriorate. Yes, the election is wearing everyone down, but today we focused momentarily on the FOMC statement which basically paved the way for...

Friends Stocks drifted lower in October, and today's start to November was more of the same. Stocks felt heavy all day and finally tumbled with a little vigor by mid-afternoon. We did see some recovery in the last hour of trading, but nevertheless the negative tone...

Friends Despite all the political headlines, the stock market seems to be totally disinterested at the moment. Today's action saw very little movement in either direction as traders continue to monitor the balance of the earnings season, an FOMC meeting which begins...

Friends Today marks the anniversary of the crash of 1929. Contrary to popular belief, I was not in the business at the time. As for today's action, well, let's just say it was another interesting day. First, we got a better than expected first look at 3rd quarter GDP...

Friends Another day, another round of earnings reports moving stocks. After the close yesterday Apple beat analyst's estimates, but after the recent rise in its share price it was not surprising to see some profit taking. On the positive side it appears that Boeing...

Friends Earnings are the story, and in some cases it is somewhat of a Halloween horror story. There were a couple better than expected reports given lower expectations like P&G and Lockheed Martin, but more frequent were the disappointments of the likes of Under...

Friends Deals, earnings reports, Fed speak and the final weeks of the presidential campaigns. Markets had a lot to chew on today and for the most part market participants looked at the bright side of the proceedings. The AT&T deal to buy Time Warner led the news,...

Friends Yes, we only have early returns, but so far earnings season is off to a good start with nearly 80% of the companies that have reported so far beating estimates. Again, we still have a majority of companies still to report, so we won't get too excited just yet....

Friends Stocks did not get off to a very good start for the week as earnings season is about to kick into high gear. There was a negative tone to trading even before the opening bell as stocks spent the day wallowing in negative territory. After the close we get...

Friends Better than expected earnings reports from financial giants J P Morgan Chase and Citigroup helped set a positive tone at the opening bell this morning as stocks rocketed to early morning gains. As the day and trading session wore on many of those gains...

Friends As we have mentioned lately, volatility is definitely back. Stocks plummeted right from the opening this morning, culminating in a 184 point Dow loss, before the bulls stepped in and did some buying. By the close, stocks had recovered to eliminate most of the...

Friends The FOMC minutes released this afternoon indicated that internally there is more of a battle between the hawks and the doves than we have seen for some time within the Fed. The hawks pushed for a rate hike in September, while the doves still did not see enough...

Friends Stocks tumbled today as volatility seems to be picking up again as we enter earnings season. Today's action saw stocks give up yesterday's gains and then some as oil finally weakened a bit while the dollar strengthened.  With the political climate getting...