Blog Archives

Morphing Into Moral Issues

November 14, 2011

Good morning. A nice Veteran’s Day rally on Friday had the SPY closing up on the week after a serious down move on Wednesday following a spike in Italian debt rates to well over the supposed 7% danger level. The SPY closed up 1.18 (.9%) at 126.66, with the ranges being a low of 122.86 on Wednesday after a high of 128.02 on Tuesday. The VIX was up slightly (.11) to close at 30.15, but had a spike to 36.43 during Wednesday’s sharp sell-off. In general the market remained driven by news from Europe, but it does seem that, in the absence of bad news out of Europe, the direction appears positive.

Riddle Me This

October 10, 2011

Good morning. It was a solid week to the upside last week, with the SPY gaining 2.3% to close at 115.71. The “relief” rally also caused the VIX to drop sharply to a level of 36.20, a weekly drop of 15.7%. A lot of this was due to a growing idea that the European debt situation was about to be more adequately addressed by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the governments of Germany and France.

Different Administration, Same Problems

July 13, 2009

Good morning. Dull and down for the market last week, with the SPY down 1.95, or 2%, to close at 87,96. The onslaught of earnings season continues this week, but the initial earnings report of Alcoa (AA) showing sales down over 40% from last year tells the tale. It’s true that AA has shown some management aggressiveness in cutting costs (and some solid PR in telling everyone what a good job they are doing) so the earnings, although negative, were not as bad as expected.