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.
Who Wants the Truth?
June 27, 2011
Good morning. The SPY finished the week down .24 (call it flat) after having some wild moves on Wednesday and Thursday. A rally early in the week culminated in a Wednesday high of 129.81, only to sell off to a Thursday low of 126.19 before bouncing back strongly (after yet another announcement of impending settlement in Greece) to a Thursday close of 128.30. Based on the strength of that bounce you might have thought the rally would continue, but you would have been mistaken, or at least early.
Laughter, Disbelief, Anger
March 21, 2011
Good morning. Volatile and down week for the market last week, despite a solid bounce off the Wednesday lows. The SPY was down 3.08 on the week to close at 127.76 (2.3%), which was still a solid 2.48 (2%) off the low made on Wednesday afternoon. The news regarding the Japanese earthquake damage and subsequent tsunami, soon overwhelmed by events at the nearby nuclear reactor facility, dominated the trading for the week. A big upward reaction to the market was directly associated with a coordinated G7 (first coordinated intervention in over ten years) move to stop appreciation of the Japanese yen in the aftermath of the disaster.
This Island Earth
May 10, 2010
Good morning. Wild and down market last week, with the SPY closing down 7.55 (or 6.4%) to close at 111.26. The VIX spiked up 85% to close at 40.95, signifying that the cost to protect positions had risen dramatically, and actually closed Friday night very close to the high. In addition the market had a nightmare day on Thursday, with the markets spiking down and coming virtually unglued for a brief time in the afternoon. Investigations are abounding, and should show that the entire market structure needs to be looked at very strongly and honestly, but I am not holding out any hope for real reform.
Grind Out Some Returns
March 1, 2010
Good morning. The market ended last week down ever so slightly, with the SPY down a whole .40 (or .4%) on the week. However, that weekly summary masks a series of almost violent ups and downs on both an inter and intra day basis. For example, we had a virtually flat Monday, then a surprisingly negative Consumer Confidence number on Tuesday sent us down almost 1.5%. Wednesday brought a snap back rally of almost the same magnitude, followed by bad jobs numbers on Thursday that had us down almost 2% before recovering to almost unchanged.