Friends Despite Dow component Boeing’s attempt to drag stocks down, the market averages worked hard to produce decent gains on this first day of a very busy earnings week. Yes, Boeing continues to struggle with the 737 Max story, but corporate earnings should set the...

Friends Stocks were trying to hang in there today, but the weight of Boeing and Johnson & Johnson on the Dow finally forced the index to tumble decisively lower. Both of the blue chip names were dealing with special legal situations and nothing really earnings...

Friends Not surprisingly, after yesterday’s earnings driven rally, stocks took a bit of a breather today after a somewhat disappointing retail sales number was released before the opening bell. As mentioned, we are just getting started with regards to earnings reports...

Friends Earnings season has begun, and by all measures it’s off to a pretty nice start. We got positive numbers from Johnson & Johnson and United Healthcare, and the banks led by J P Morgan Chase and Citigroup also provided a catalyst to the market. Dow component...

Friends Enthusiasm for last Friday’s trade deal news cooled some today as the bulls took their foot off the accelerator, and stocks drifted mainly in negative territory for most of the trading session. It is likely that market participants will be switching their...

Friends Stop the presses. There’s a trade deal with China. Well, maybe there’s the makings of a trade deal with China. Wait, hold on, it appears that there might be something we can call a trade deal with China. My head hurts. Wait, we have a “substantial phase one...

Friends Continuing the "let's follow the headline" pattern; stocks had a nice bounce back rally today based on a more favorable tone on trade talks. I know, it seems to change on an hourly basis, but until we immerse ourselves in corporate earnings season, this is...

Friends Maybe the trade talks will go well- stocks go up. Maybe the trade talks won’t go so well – stocks go down. That pretty much describes the trading action today. Stocks began the day in the red, but hope of fruitful trade talks had the Dow and the S&P back...

Friends We had a goldilocks type of employment report this morning. 136,000 new jobs were created, which was a little shy of expectations, but we got upward revisions to the last two monthly reports. In addition, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, and average hourly...

Friends More weak economic data this morning, namely the disappointing ISM non-manufacturing number, sent stocks tumbling once again in early trading. Bond yields also tumbled with the 10 year Treasury note yield falling all the way to 1.53%. But, after a more than...

Friends Well that was a mess. Stocks continued to tumble after yesterday's disappointing ISM manufacturing number, as concerns about an economic slowdown/recession once again rear their ugly head. Today's ADP private payroll employment number came in shy of...

Friends Stocks were off to a nice start this morning, but a worse than expected ISM manufacturing number took the wind out of the sails of the bulls, and the bears put on the full court press as the trading session wore on. Shares of industrial stocks had been...

Friends What a quarter. Political turmoil, recession fears, trade wars, Fed indecision/confusion, daily headline risk and never-ending market moving tweets. Good grief, how much did the market suffer? Well, actually, after all was said and done both the S&P 500...

Friends Stocks ended lower, but without much conviction. The revised GDP number came in exactly the same as the previous revision, up 2% for the 2nd quarter of the year, and the pending home sales number was better than last month. Once again, on the economic front,...