Blog Archives

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.

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.