Blog Archives

Moral Compass of Mayberry

July 18, 2011

Good morning. The market finished down last week despite a late short-covering rally on Friday afternoon. The SPY finished the week down 2.71 to finish at 131.69 (2%) after trading as low as 130.77 on Friday. The VIX soared 23% to close at 19.53 and the GLD (gold ETF) finished the week up 3.3% at 155.19. The market activity can be summarized as a series of fairly violent moves within the range of 130.50-135.50, with a lot of the significant trading taking place outside of normal market hours.

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?

Will it Take a Musket Some Day?

March 16, 2009

Good morning. A whole different tone in the market this morning from prior weeks, with the stock market staging a significant rally last week. Last week the S&P was up $7.17, from a close on March 6 of $68.92 to a close last week of $76.09, a gain of 10.4%.

Predictions

March 9, 2009

Good morning. Yet another horrible week for the market, as the SPY continued its seemingly relentless slide lower. The SPY finished the week at $68.92, down 6.8% for the week, bringing the yearly carnage to 23.7%. These numbers are despite a fairly substantial closing rally last Friday that had the SPY close 2.7% above its low print, and actually finish up slightly on the day.