Friends Traders (at least those not on vacation) seem to be focused on when the Fed will begin the tapering process. Again, the tapering process (lowering the amount of securities being purchased on a monthly basis) is not taking the punch bowl away. It is simply...

Friends Where were the buyers today? On another light day of trading stocks spent the session in negative territory as expectations that the Fed will use the somewhat positive economic data points (all but the employment report last Friday), to begin the tapering...

Friends After last week’s plethora of economic news, traders seemed lethargic this morning at the opening of trading. Stocks drifted into negative territory despite a nice ISM non-manufacturing number released at 9:00 am our time. Not much really happened the rest of...

Friends So much for that whisper number. The government jobs data was released this morning as there were 162,000 new jobs created last month and the unemployment rate dropped to 7.4%. The jobs number was a bit shy of what traders were expecting, but not so bad as to...

Friends We have a lot to talk about today. On the economic front the weekly jobless claims number came in at a very nice 326,000 new claims, quite a bit better than the expected 345,000. The PMI Manufacturing Index was also better than expected with new orders,...

Friends Today was full of economic data points and market directional changes. Before the open, we got a stronger than expected ADP employment number with 200,000 new private sector jobs having been created in June. Just after that we got our first look at 2ndquarter...

Friends It was a rather mixed and confusing day in the stock market. Fueled by an impressive Case-Shiller report indicating that home prices are still on the rise nationwide, stocks got off to a nice start with the Dow sporting a 50 point gain in early trading. By...

Friends Today’s pending home sales numbers indicated that rising home prices and rising mortgage rates are beginning to curb the sales of existing homes in the U.S.  That number along with a weaker than expected Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey number contributed to a...

Friends Today’s stock action was a little more dynamic than most of the week. We saw our only triple digit move this week as the Dow fell more than 150 points by late morning trading. The better than expected consumer sentiment number didn’t deter traders from selling...

Friends Traders were trying to determine where to take their cues today as the domestic economic news was good (durable goods number better than expected and the weekly jobless claims about in line), but the earnings parade was somewhat mixed. The star of the day was...

Friends As earnings reports keep coming, traders seem somewhat uninterested. Yes, for the most part companies are doing just fine, but top line revenue growth is once again difficult to find. Corporate managements are squeezing everything they can out of margins, but...

Friends Despite or because of a very nice new home sales number, stocks had a difficult time today. Earnings overnight were mixed, with Apple, Ford and Boeing actually doing better than expected, and Caterpillar laying an egg, but stocks began to fall after the new...

Friends Once again, earnings reports were mixed, but the stock weighing most on the Dow Jones Industrial Average was McDonald’s Corp. which single handedly kept the Dow out of positive territory most of the day. The fast food giant disappointed the street with a...

Friends While the business news stations blabber on about a large hedge fund manager being charged by the SEC, let’s talk about earnings season. Today’s releases were a good microcosm of the past two weeks of earnings. We got good reports from the likes of General...

Friends Stocks spent the whole day in positive territory buoyed by good economic news including an impressive weekly jobless claims number, as well as a much better than expected Philly Fed index number (indicating an improving manufacturing sector). Once again, it...