Friends   Stocks were mixed today with the Dow faltering while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq mainly held serve. If you are a long-term bull (and I hope you are) days like this are needed. We continue to be concerned about valuation and one way to deal with that is to...

Friends   Even the Department of Justice couldn’t kill this bull market run. Yes, their anti-trust case against Apple took a bite out of the tech giant’s shares but it wasn’t enough to stop the bullish momentum of the market averages.   For the day, the Dow Jones...

Friends   Just when this market looks like it is running out of steam it seems to find another gear. Tomorrow, we get the results of this week’s Fed FOMC meeting, but the bulls didn’t appear to be too concerned. No, the Fed won’t change the Fed Funds rate but...

Friends   Stocks moved higher in today’s trading session despite interest rates continuing to inch higher and the uncertainty of a Fed meeting this week. I say uncertainty in that it is known that the Fed won’t change the Fed Funds rate this week, but what messaging...

Friends   It was another difficult day for stocks, as rates creeping higher after this week’s inflation data is providing a formidable headwind. The market averages spent the entire session in the red as buyers appear to be tentative to put new money to work.   By the...

Friends   Another hotter than expected inflation number poses a problem for the “Fed is going to lower rates soon” crowd. Today it was the Producer Price Index which measures prices at the wholesale level. All of a sudden, we aren’t seeing the level of inflation fall...

Friends   The determined move higher for stocks took a pause today as the big growth names saw a little profit taking among market participants. These pauses that we have seen along the way appear to have kept the overall bull market rather healthy. We have pointed...

Friends   The CPI number which measures inflation at the consumer level came in a little hotter than expected this morning, but evidently not too hot for the bulls. It’s so funny because Goldman Sachs put out a piece before the number indicating what direction stocks...

Friends   Today’s jobs number came in higher than expected, 275,000 new jobs created in February vs. the 198,000 expected. But, and this is actually probably good news for stocks, last month’s blowout number was revised down. Also, probably good for stocks was the...

Friends   What has been impressive about the bullish market that has unfolded over the past five months is how quickly any selloff is bought. We have only seen a few down days recently and when we do the damage has been more than erased with a day or two. This week...

Friends   We did see dip buyers step in this morning and move stock prices nicely higher. But as the day wore on the buying seemed to dry up and stocks, despite still posting gains, retreated from their highs of the day. So,  not a bad day for the bulls in that we...

Friends   We finally got a little of the air let out of the stock balloon today. Stocks tumbled led by the big tech names which helped drive the Nasdaq almost 2% lower for the day at its worst point. Things did recover a bit before the close but still a measurable...

Friends   Stocks were mainly quiet as we start a new week of trading. We have seen a huge move higher in the past 5 months so it will be interesting to see if the bulls can keep things going without interruption or are we due to cool things off just a bit. The...

Friends   Stocks continued higher today with the Nasdaq leading the way. The bulls had hoped we would see a broadening out of the move but at the moment many of the same high-tech names are carrying the load once again. All in all, though the direction has been...

Friends   Today’s release of the PCE (personal consumption expenditures) came in about as expected showing an increase of 2.4% year over year. Excluding food and energy the number came in at a 2.8% year over year increase-also in line with expectations. This is...