The Inquisitive Mind

This week’s brutal sell-off has resulted in large declines in many stocks. Looking at broad market statistics, the percentage of stocks which have fallen below key moving averages has exceeded previous corrections since the March 2009 lows. Here are some charts which show how broad the decline has been.
Percentage of Stocks above their 50 Day [...]

[Read more →]

The small cap Russell 2000 (RUT) index is reaching some fairly significant technical milestones which might be indicating that a short to intermediate term top is perhaps near. RUT finished Friday at a 52 week high of 666.02.
Measured Move Targets
This chart published by the Disqus user Joe8888 shows the measured move on the RUT quite [...]

[Read more →]

Over the past few months there has been a lot of investor interest in natural gas. The spot price of natural gas has collapsed to under $3 from a high of $14 last year. At the same time crude oil has rallied to a high of $74, from a low of $34. As a result [...]

[Read more →]

The first trading day of August saw two equity indices reach major milestones, a very rare occurrence. The S&P 500 index closed above the 1000 mark for the first time since last November, while the Nasdaq composite closed above 2000 for the first time since last October.
The S&P 500 has rallied almost 50% from the [...]

[Read more →]

Over the last month the equity markets have drifted downwards after the SPX failed to move beyond the 950 level after multiple attempts. During this period the 200 Day Moving Average has provided the market with a well defined level to trade off, with equities bouncing off this level multiple times. The 870 level on [...]

[Read more →]

The financial markets continued to trade in a choppy manner today. As I had anticipated, the price action on Friday, with the SPX opening at a new high but closing below prior highs (Trader Vic’s 2B pattern), resulted in more selling today. Equity markets gapped down open and were under negative pressure most of [...]

[Read more →]

The financial markets had a roller coaster ride today after the surprisingly lower loss in payrolls reported by the non-farm payrolls report. Equity futures shot up almost 1.5%, well above their 2009 highs, while treasuries were sold hard. After an initial sell-off, possibly related to automatic trading linked to equity futures, the dollar rallied with [...]

[Read more →]

The equity markets continued where they left off yesterday and closed higher across the board, with the Russell2000 and the Nasdaq making new 2009 highs. The markets were led by two calls related to Goldman: the first an upgrade of the financial sector including Goldman, and the second, Goldman’s new target for crude oil for [...]

[Read more →]

The equity markets finally reacted to the broader economic picture after the large gains of the past few days. The ADP employment report which included a steep correction to April’s number, coupled with weaker ISM index of non-manufacturing activity led to a large gap down open in equity markets. News of disagreement about the [...]

[Read more →]

Equity markets spent the day consolidating the gains of the past two days. All major equity indices reached new highs above yesterday’s highs, but could not hold that level. Treasury bonds got a slight bid after yesterday’s decimation. The dollar continued its downward slide with oil ramping up in sympathy. Risk appetite continued to be [...]

[Read more →]