Traders Take An Extra Day Off; Stocks Dance Around And Close Basically Flat, On Slightly Higher Volume.
April 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stock investors returned from a long three-day Easter weekend to a very inactive market. Even though trading was pretty wild, choppy and volatile today, the market still traded in a very narrow range and basically did not move from Thursday’s close. Read more
The Bad News From The Housing Sector Just Doesn’t Stop; Stocks End Lower But On Lower Volume
March 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was a day of bad news all around, as rising oil prices, more bad news from the housing market, and a drop in consumer confidence rocked stocks early. After the early morning rock, stocks basically spent the rest of the day boring everyone as all of the action was before the bell.
Before the bell, the Conference Board consumer confidence index fell to 107.2 in March, from a downward revised 111.2 in February. This was the first decline in five month and below estimates, after the index hit a 5 1/2 year high in February. Then we had the bad news from LEN’s Q1 report. The stock said this quarter EPS came in 72% lower and withdrew 2007 earnings estimates. The combination of these two news events, with oil making gains helped send all stock indexes lower. The bad news continued, after-hours, for the homebuilders, but we will get to that later.
At the close, the Nasdaq and SP 600 led to the downside with .7% declines, the SP 500, the DJIA and NYSE lost .6%, and the SP 400 held up the best with only a .5% loss. Leading stocks kept pace with the market, with the IBD 100 falling .7%. Even with the leading stocks keeping pace with the Nassy to the downside, there still was virtually no selling in the stocks that make up this current index.
A Boring Day Of Trading Ends With Stocks Mixed On Lower Volume; Best Week For Stocks In Six Months
March 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
A boring, erratic, and overall lame session came to end Friday, after a week of surprises on many fronts. The only thing not boring today was the post-1pm EST action in the Nasdaq; up, wedge up, down, wedge down, and up. Still, that only led to a flat close. Today’s headlines were much more subdued than the previous four days, but we still had some important numbers to digest. Existing-home sales were up 3.9% in February to an annualized 6.69 million. That was the fastest growth since April and above economist estimates. This was a welcome report, after all the thrashing we received last month. The other news item making its way around was the 15 British sailors and marines that were captured by Iranian kidnappers. However, as expected, this was not market moving news. Read more
Stocks Gap And Trap Shorts On Lower Volume; Second Lowest Volume Since Last Week of 2006
March 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was an exciting morning, as stocks gapped higher, as many investors were expecting a big follow-through day. However, after that gap up, stocks did not go much further than that, giving a feeling of a short-squeeze and not real buying by funds. The gap up, this morning, gave credit to the overnight success of Asian markets and the rash of mergers and acquisitions that took place. Read more
Another Dead-Cat Lower Volume Rally Give Stocks A Green Close; I Don’t Trust This Market
March 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stocks kept on bouncing, on Monday, as a flurry of merger and acquisition news and lower oil helped stocks finish higher, despite further bad news from the subprime loan sector. Before the bell, news that DG was being bought out by a private equity group, UNH was buying SIE, and SGP was buying AKZOY hit the market. However, the NYSE halted trading on NEW as NEW said it will not be able to pay back some HUGE loans (NEW fell 48% overnight). This had much more of a morning impact on stocks than any of the merger news, as the market opened flat. But as the day went on traders covered some shorts helping start a low volume rally that was met with a little bit of selling at the end. Oil falling below $60 to $58.91, for the first time in three weeks, was the reason given for the markets afternoon rally. However, the lower volume afternoon rally with a last hour pullback (AGAIN) leaves much to the imagination. Read more
The Oversold Bounce I Expected Arrived Earlier Than Anticipated; Big Gains Come On Lower Volume
March 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stocks staged an extremely strong rally, off the back of an overnight rally in Asia and Europe. But the big log-jam higher came during comments by Ben arguing for more regulation over the mortgage giants FNM and FRE. Stocks were pulling back slightly ahead of those comments. However, that being a reason for the rally is hogwash. The reason was that stocks were beaten a lot over a very short period of time and a very powerful oversold bounce was to be expected. There was a bit of bad econ news today out of the factory orders. Orders fell 5.6%, below economist expectations and coming in with the worst drop since July 2000. This had no effect on the market, as can be seen below, as all stock indexes recouped all of Monday’s losses. Read more
Stocks Close In The Green But Fail To Recover Much Of The Severe Losses From Yesterday; Where Did All The Nice Charts Go?
March 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stocks gapped higher in the morning but soon lost those gains, off the back of three weak economic numbers. First Q4 GDP came in with a final revision of a 2.2% gain. That was much lower than the initial 3.5% reported and below 2.3% estimates. Then new home sales came in with a Y over Y fall of 16.6%. That was the worst fall in 13 years. Finally, the Chicago PMI fell to 47.9, below the neutral 50 mark, signaling that the factory sector is slowing down. However, Ben came to the rescue, with comments that the economy was “fine” and that the economy is showing “moderate growth.” This helped lift stocks off the lows, leading them to green closes. The tame gains, compared to Tuesday’s losses, however, shows that yesterday’s losses were more than just a one day “mistake.” This had to be disappointing to market bulls, even though they will not tell you it was.
At the close, stocks barely recovered any of their losses, with the SP 500 leading the way with a .6% gain, the DJIA followed with a .4% gain, the Nasdaq gained .3%, and the SP 400 and 600 gained .1%. This was not the kind of buying that inspires confidence that the selling from yesterday was a one day phenomenon. The IBD 100 gained 1.3% and the IBD 85-85 gained 1.2%. Both well below their 5.3% losses yesterday. Today was not bullish.
Indexes All Finish In The Red But Still Finish Well Off The Lows; Leading, Tech, And Small-Cap Stocks Lead This Week
February 24, 2007 | 2 Comments
Stocks finally decided to take a break, across the board, as stocks meandered in the red all day, closing off the lows. However, a slight change of character was the fact that there was no last hour rally. That is probably due to most traders starting the weekend early as an exhaustive holiday shortened week comes to an end. There was no doubt that with no economic news of significance today that digesting this week’s gains was a good thing. Read more
Stock Indexes Rally Off The Lows, Once Again, But Close Mixed
February 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was another wild session, with an intraday bullish bias, after a weak opening. Thanks to bad news out of Iran (did you expect anything else?) and crude oil rising 1.5% on news that inventories were smaller than expected, big caps suffered. However, some positive action in Semiconductor stocks and news that WFMI is buying OATS helped save the Nasdaq. A mixed day to a wild yet uneventful session best sums it up. Read more
Stocks Indexes Keep Rallying; New Buy Candidates Drying Up As Most Are Extended Beyond Proper Buy Points
February 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
There was plenty of economic data for the market to feast upon, on Thursday. However, neither that or continued testimony by Ben was able to really move stocks one way or the other. Though industrial output fell by the largest amount in 17 months, stocks didn’t mind and were able to close higher across the board, for the third straight day. Read more
