Published:
Monday, May 20, 2013 1:28 PM PDT
Welcome back all. Hope you had a good weekend, and for those of you who are horse racing fans, we hope put some money on Preakness winner Oxbow. At 15-1 odds, it's pretty clear bettors didn't think much of him, but it just goes to show you that anything can happen. If you've got a hunch, sometimes the best thing to do is act on it even if the majority of the crowd doesn't agree. The same applies to picking stocks, by the way. Anyway, more new highs from the market today, but with a red flag late in the session...
Published:
Friday, May 17, 2013 1:46 PM PDT
Good Friday afternoon everybody. Hope your week went well, and we hope your weekend is a good one. The second leg of the Triple Crown's races - the Preakness - is being held this weekend, but I'm not going to offer you any tips this time around. Honestly, after the favored horse actually won the Kentucky Derby (which has only happened four times since 1979), I figure my horse instincts are "off". Just do the overly-obvious thing and take a swing on the favored name... which still happens to be Orb...
Published:
Thursday, May 16, 2013 1:12 PM PDT
Well kids, we finally got the gold supply/demand information we've been talking about all week. It was worth the wait, though it's not necessarily pleasant news if you've been patiently holding a gold position and waiting for a bounce. The data from the World Gold Council was - in a word - discouraging. That's probably not the spin you got from the WGC, or the headlines the first quarter report spurred. But, when you look beyond the headlines and dig into the numbers, gold's fundamentals just don't look all...
Published:
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 1:58 PM PDT
Another day, another new high. And why not? After all, nothing causes the market to go higher than a rising market. (Yes, that was a tongue-in-cheek joke, though not an inaccurate statement.) Like I said yesterday, the market's at a point and pace where the rally is going full throttle simply because most everyone is too nervous to put the brakes on it.... fearing a slow-down could open the door to some serious profit taking. We'll update the outlook in a second. First we need to paint the bigger picture. A...
Published:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 1:33 PM PDT
And the beat goes on. Stocks made new all-time highs again, this time on a combination of news regarding the United States' oil boom, a forecast for the Dow to reach 20,000 by the year 2020 (which really isn't all that impressive), and the New York Federal Reserve publishing some research that says stocks are still cheap, in that we can expect - and I quote from the Fed's publication - "historically high excess returns for the S&P 500 for the next five years." I know I said yesterday that I liked...
Published:
Monday, May 13, 2013 1:35 PM PDT
Happy Monday everyone. I'm not sure if you were ready to start the new week or not (I know I wasn't), but here it is all the same. And, it kicked off with plenty of news to stir the market's pot. First and foremost, I'm sure you saw headlines that the Federal Reserve may finally be looking for a way to put the brakes on its quantitative easing via its bond-buying program. Since September of last year, the Fed has been buying more than $80 billion worth of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities in an effort...
Published:
Friday, May 10, 2013 1:49 PM PDT
Welcome to the weekend. Well, almost. We've got a little time left in the workweek, and a few pieces of business to take care of. "I expect there will be many more" The words say all that needs to be said. "I expect there will be many more." That's what Rose Romero - a former federal prosecutor and regional director for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission - said about a flash wave of cybercrime that drained $45 million worth of cash from ATMs in just a few hours. A handful of guys...
Published:
Thursday, May 9, 2013 1:45 PM PDT
Is everyone enjoying their lazy (for the market anyway) Thursday? Mild weather, mild movement from stocks, not much in the way of economic news... a perfect recipe for stepping away from your trader's role for an afternoon and doing whatever it is you do for fun. For me, that's bad golf, but I'm just as big of a fan as sitting back and enjoying some sun. For those of you who are truly addicted to the market though, there's never any rest - so-called "down time" is a reason to study and find new opportunities...
Published:
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 1:51 PM PDT
I'm sure most of you will recall we've talked about J.C. Penney (JCP) more than a few times of late, mentioning in passing that we were still bullish back on April 26th, but diving into a bullish stance neck-deep back on April 9th. It's been a nutty ride the whole time, but with JCP shares up 27% since our first table-pounding look, we're not complaining. A thought occurred to me as I was scouring today's batch of headlines about J.C. Penney though - it's probably been really, really tough for you to get excited...
Published:
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 1:59 PM PDT
Un-freakin-believable. It's like nothing can get in the rally's way. Good news drives the market higher. Bad news drives the market higher. It's pretty clear the bulls are doing everything they can to see the silver lining in, well, everything. While that's a freight train you don't want to stand in front of, those "everything is wonderful all the time" rallies can come crashing down hard once they finally do stop. And yeah, I think we're finally there. I've got (another) specific reason for it though...
