Friends In economic news we got a somewhat mixed message this morning as the PMI Manufacturing Index came in better than expected, while the ISM Manufacturing Index was just shy of awful. The result was a minor rally on the first number and a giveback on the second....

Friends After a week of gyrations spurred by comment after comment from the nation’s politicians, the markets seemed simply out of gas today. The President spoke in the morning- nothing. Speaker Boehner made some comments and answered a few questions a couple of hours...

Friends Looks like there could be a deal! The Republicans need to bring a serious offer to the table! The Democrats have not offered one serious spending cut! Are you getting tired of these proclamations every couple of hours? Do we really expect the politicians to...

Friends We had quite a reversal today in equities, as after a 100 plus Dow point early morning drubbing, stocks spurred on by comments from Boehner and Obama(and later WSJ rumors that the Fed may be ready with QE4 – yes it is almost laughable at this point) and...

Friends Early in the day, we received a plethora of positive economic news including a better than expected durable goods number, a decent Richmond Fed number and another decent consumer confidence number. In addition, we now have seen home prices rise for the last 6...

Friends After Friday’s “the adults are away so the kids will play” rally, stocks somewhat expectedly saw some profit taking in early trading today. But after last week’s revival in equities, today’s give back was not really that bad. Of course, we have to keep one eye...

Friends Stocks seemed destined to drift aimlessly today, but the midday news that there was a ceasefire in the works in the Middle East helped spark a little rally in stocks. But with traders itching to get home and begin their Thanksgiving holiday (Friday is a half...

Friends After a couple days of rising prices, stocks paused today for a little regrouping. Unfortunately, we got the politicians out of town, but the Fed Chairman was dropping pearls of wisdom at a monitored lunch event, indicating that if the politicians take us over...

Friends Let’s see, the President is out of the country, the Congress is out of Washington D.C. and stocks explode to the upside. Coincidence? I think not. That’s right, with nothing very noteworthy on the “fiscal cliff” front, traders were able to take a breath today...

Friends After being down in early trading, stocks rallied late in the morning when Congressional leaders emerged from their meeting with the President holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Yes, they said all the right things, like they know what they have to do etc., and...

Friends Here is how I can best describe what is going on in the stock market right now. Imagine a large spring that is being pushed down upon day after day by traders and investors. As the spring continues to compress it is storing up more and more energy that will...

Friends Stocks continue to fall as the wrangling over the fiscal cliff continues. From the September highs, we have now seen a more than 1000 point drop in the Dow and about an 8% drop in the S&P 500. As we indicated, the markets will cast judgment on the...

Friends With the bond market closed today, stocks basically just drifted along on very light volume as traders seem reluctant to get involved at the moment. With non-stop talk of the fiscal cliff and what type of deal might be struck, investors seem almost scared to...

Friends After a couple of days of selling, stocks found a little sponsorship today, but not without some volatility. At the open we continued the last 2 days selloff, but by late morning we had climbed back into positive territory. As Speaker of the House Boehner held...