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
March 16, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was a weird sluggish session, today, but in the end it was another typical quadruple-witching Friday. However, there was plenty of data for Wall Street to go through, despite this once a month event. The CPI rose a little over .4%, a bit higher than the .3% estimate. But the core prices came in line rising .2% for a year over year change of 2.7%. Industrial production jumped 1% in February, over the readings for a .3% increase and its largest increase since November. Michigan consumer confidence fell (are you surprised there?) to 88.8. Add the fact that oil fell below $58 and might have thought it would have been a more exciting day. Nope. Quadruple-witching ruled the day. Read more
March 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stocks finished slightly higher, today, after a barrage of economic data, mergers & acquisitions, and even a scare from Alan Greenspan warning of the subprime loan sector spilling over and effecting other areas of the economy (people didn’t know that would happen?). However, the gains weren’t that impressive as a choppy day of trading had very little volume behind it. At the start of the day, the Philly Fed index came in with a disappointing 1.9 reading, the Empire Manufacturing index came in with a disappointing 1.85 reading, and the Employment Index came in with a -2.3. Jobless claims also jumped to 12,000. That was 4 times more than expected. To go along with that, the PPI almost doubled in February with a 1.3% gain. Analyst expected a jump of .6%. So we had terrible economic numbers along with an inflation scare that caused traders to talk about the Fed raising rates. That of course is the worst scenario possible. We call that stagflation. There is nothing worse than stagflation. Read more
March 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was a wild ride this Wednesday as stocks started the day off where they left off yesterday. On the back of Labor Dept. data showing the import price index rise .2% and the Commerce Dept. showing 4Q account deficits narrowing, stocks kept the pace of yesterday’s losses early. But after the markets made new lows for the year, breaking past the March 5th lows, stock market indexes quickly reversed and rose into the final bell, closing at or near their HOD. Read more
March 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was another very ugly day for the stock market as the continuation of non-stop bad news keeps coming out. Today, before the opening bell, it was retail sales coming in at a less than .1% gain, when economist were expecting a .3% gain. That got the day started on the wrong foot but by noon time there was more pain to be delivered. The news that foreclosures rose to a .54% total of all mortgages outstanding, mortgage delinquencies rose to 4.95% of all loans, and that subprime delinquencies rose to 14.4% of all loans sent stock swooning into the close. These poor loan numbers were the worst since mid-2003. Read more
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
March 10, 2007 | 2 Comments
Stocks gapped higher off a mixed jobs report. Total jobs for the month came in at the lowest level in two years but the unemployment data dipped to 4.5% from 4.6% and last months numbers were revised up continuing a recent pattern, possibly giving market players a bit of buying power. The gap higher then led to an immediate selloff, followed by a weak rally, that led to even more lows. However, at the end stocks actually caught a late bid, helping them close off the lows. A pattern that did not exist the rest of the week. The prevailing pattern, before Friday’s close was to rally until the final hour then either selloff or flatline. This is bearish action and combining that with the low volume rally puts and end to a dead-cat bounce week. Read more
March 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment
It was a choppy day today (no surprise here) as stocks opened flat, then fell, the rallied, and then took a last hour nosedive. When it was over, all indexes ended in the red closing near the LOD, except the MidCap 400 index. There was not much in economic news to move the market. The Fed Beige Book showed modest growth in the economy, with 3 out of 12 districts slowing down. This lack of econ news kept the market in a benign trading range that led to a last hour selloff that killed a possible green close. Read more
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
March 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Stock market indexes took traders on a wild and crazy wild, on Monday, as stocks gapped lower due to fears out of Asia, the subprime mortgage market, and other various reasons. By the middle of the day stocks managed to make it to the green but were then slammed in the final hour on heavy selling sending the averages right back to where they started. Read more