Blog Archives
The Sherman Act
October 19, 2009
Good morning. A positive week for the market last week, even with a down Friday due to a couple of rocky earnings reports. The SPY closed at 108.89, up 1.5% for the week, bringing the total rally in the SPY from the March low to 62.3%. Friday there was positive earnings from Google, but not so positive from IBM, GE, and Bank of America. In fact, BAC still seems to be writing off some loans in the consumer sector and will continue to have some problems in that area for a while. The question is, how much of even a positive earnings announcement is already anticipated in the price?
Striking a Balance
October 5, 2009
Good morning. Last week the market had its second down week in a row, with the SPY down 1.96 to close at 102.49. That represents a decline of 1.9%, and is 5.2% off the high of 108.06 reached of 9/17. Is it a healthy pause or is the rally over? To be determined, but clearly the “buy every dip” mentality evident in the long run-up has cooled some. Economic numbers in the last couple of weeks have shown uneven progress in the recovery, and those most recent actually seem to indicate that the recovery is stalling in the face of huge governmental stimulus.
Conundrums and Stress Tests
May 11, 2009
Good morning. It was yet another solid week for the market, especially big caps, last week. The SPY had a very strong move from 97.89 to 92.98, or 5.8% (and now positive on the year), and the Industrials were up 4.4%, from 8,212 to 8,575. The QQQQ’s, however, were actually down slightly on the week, from 34.37 to 34.23. To some extent the rally was concentrated in oils and financials, and the de-coupling with the QQQQ’s may signal that some caution should be considered after the rapid run-up. The VIX continues to show an increased comfort in the market, as it was down over 10% on the week, from 35.29 to 32.04.
Trillions
February 2, 2009
Good morning. Another week, another sell-off in the S&P. The good news is that the week was only down a little, about .3%, the bad news is that there was a 3.4% up day erased. The up day was caused by the announcement that the Obama administration was going to announce a so-called bad bank to take bad assets from struggling commercial banks, the subsequent sell-off was caused by glitches in that plan as well as increasing issues with the new stimulus package.
Who Do We Think We Are?
January 19, 2009
Good morning. Another week and still no rally of any sort, not even a feeble Bear market rally. Given the action in Europe today (Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday) I do not hold out a lot of positive hope for tomorrow’s market as well, even though it is Inauguration Day. It seems Royal Bank of Scotland, and others, still have issues.