Blog Archives

Moral Compass of Mayberry


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.

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Year End Wrap-Up


Happy New Year! This last year was certainly a tester, as really was the whole last decade. We will finish the year in the SPY up almost 25% at around 113 or so, after a furious sell off in the first quarter took the SPY down to a low of 67.10 on March 6. The VIX looks like it will close under 20, after starting the year around 40, so as the market has steadily climbed since March the perceived fear in the market place has dropped by half.

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The New Taxation


Good morning. It was a very strong week for the market last week, with the SPY making up most of the previous week’s sell-off. The SPY closed at 107.13, up 3.4% from the previous week’s close of 103.56 and almost equal to the 108.08 close of the week before. Even more of interest is the dramatic drop in the VIX last week, down to 24.19 from the last Friday close of 30.69, or a whopping 27%.

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On The Good Ship “Market”


Good morning. A furious rally of 246 points last Thursday made for a holiday shortened positive week in the market, with the SPY finishing up $1.65 or 1.8% for the week. The continued upside move in the market caused the VIX to drop 3.18 points to 36.52, a value the market has not seen since September 26, 2008. The VIX made an initial drop this year, after a relatively sharp year-end rally, to 36.88 on January 2, but has spent most of the year over 40. This morning we are seeing a modest retracement so far of last Thursday’s rally, but nohuge sell-off.

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