We got a rally today. Not the rally, but a rally. The S P was up nearly 2% when I recorded this, and the NASDAQ was rockin’ more than 2.5% to the upside. We can chalk this up to CPI this morning; traders read the tea leaves and decided inflation had cooled off and it was
The markets’ mood has soured - that much is obvious. There are worries about inflation - also obvious if you look at the bond market. That makes tomorrow morning’s CPI data release critical. It could make or break the action in the bond market but in stocks as well. Crude oil is at a critical
Our hearts go out to the people impacted by the wildfires in Los Angeles. The human cost has already been staggering, with at least 24 dead and as many as 100,000 forced to flee their homes. We don’t yet know the final financial toll, but as traders, we can already see signs in the
All of the big indexes got rocked to the downside today. On the surface, the market had a “good news is bad news” freakout about strong December jobs gains. We’ve seen this behavior before. Last week, in fact, I invited traders to “enjoy the bounceback… and get ready for another smack.” And that’s w
Growth: Every country wants it, and governments and their planners will crawl over broken glass to get it. Here in the United States, growth has been so-so, well below 3% in 2024, though it’s strong compared to many other big economies. As we’ve been talking about recently, we can look at the behavi
Stocks gave back all of Monday’s gains and then some today. Monday’s panic buyers were mercilessly punished for going nuts during the spree. Frankly, I’m not surprised by today’s plunge - I actually find it encouraging. That’s because a period of sideways price action will provide fuel for an even m
If, like me, you’d watched the market edge higher this morning, what would you have guessed was leading the way? None other than the Magnificent Seven, of course. In this day and age, it’s generally a good bet that that particular “basket” of stocks will lead markets higher. In fact, in 2024, Apple
Markets were up strongly today, bouncing back from this week’s beatdown. But here’s the thing. Correlation is high and still increasing. I’ve talked a lot about this recently. Correlation is tricky stuff. When you see stocks moving with no headline or hard, identifiable event driving that move - tha
I’m a technical trading guy - there’s no better way, in the moment, to get the full picture to know when to pull the trigger on a trade - or the ripcord. Technical analysis is the way to understand price action in the short term. But you can’t ignore fundamentals, the forces that dictate, more
