Analysis Topic: Stock & Financial Markets

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Here’s What Stock Market Investors Should Be Watching! / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010

By: Sy_Harding

The market is in what is usually its favorable season of November to May, when it typically makes most of its gains each year. But it hasn’t been that way so far.

Among other worries, analysts are concerned that the market’s consistent annual seasonality of ‘Sell in May and Go Away (until November1)’ has failed to work over the last two months. The market topped out on schedule in late April and was down 16% by July. This fall it began what is historically the worst three-month period of the year, August, September and October, with a big decline in August, which was the worst August in years. But then, usually negative September and October turned out to be just about the most positive two months of the year.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

S&P 500, Treasuries, Gold, & Dollar are At Key Price Levels / Stock-Markets / Options & Warrants

By: J_W_Jones

Another example of Mr. Market playing games with traders and investors as equities and precious metals took part in a strong rally. Some market prognosticators noted short-term oversold conditions across the board while others discussed the potential for a strong reversal that could potentially take out recent highs. In addition to the regular banter, to the average retail investor the market sure looks rigged when the government decides to sell a large stake in a massive IPO offering and a shaky tape suddenly becomes stronger than garlic.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Stock Market Hanging on a Thread as Bernanke Steps up QE2 Stimulus Defence / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

General Motors IPO looks good on day one…
(Bloomberg) General Motors Co., which went bankrupt last year after almost a century on the New York Stock Exchange, advanced in its return to public trading following an initial public offering that raised more than $20 billion.

GM gained 3.6 percent to $34.19 today, after climbing 9.1 percent in the first hour of trading. Its owners, including the Treasury, sold $15.8 billion of common shares at $33 each in the second-largest U.S. IPO on record. The automaker’s $4.35 billion offering of preferred shares and an overallotment option may boost the total to $23.1 billion, more than the $22.1 billion raised by Beijing-based Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. in the biggest IPO of common stock in history.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Keeping an Eye on Spain and Portugal Stock Markets / Stock-Markets / European Stock Markets

By: Chris_Ciovacco

Currently, our fundamental concerns primarily center on the possibility Portugal will become the market’s next target soon after some bailout is finalized in Ireland. Eventually, market participants will come after both Portugal and Spain; the question is how much time will the Ireland bailout buy the markets. We will need to keep an eye on Europe for the foreseeable future.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Safeguard Your Financial Future with Robert Prechter's Exclusive 10 Page Letter / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010

By: EWI

An exclusive only for Market Oracle readers, FREE access to Robert Prechter's recent 10 Page The Elliott Wave Theorist Letter:

Why are the truly big economic catastrophes so "big"? Put simply, it's that such a small number of people prepare themselves beforehand. Think about 2008 and you'll realize it's true. What's more, once you read Bob Prechter's recent 10-page Elliott Wave Theorist, you'll see that even fewer people will be ready for the soon-approaching worst leg down of the unfolding depression.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Countertrend Rallies in Dollar, Euro, Stocks, Silver, Gold, and VIX May Be Over / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010

By: Chris_Ciovacco

The countertrend rallies in the U.S. dollar (UUP), euro (FXE), stocks (SPY), silver (SLV), gold (GLD), and the VIX (VXX) may be relatively short-lived. On November 10th, we stated, “The odds of short-to-intermediate-term reversals are elevated for numerous markets”. From their recent lows to their recent highs, the VIX rallied 29% and the U.S. dollar gained 5%. From their recent highs to their recent lows, gold dropped 6.6%, silver fell 14.6%, the S&P 500 lost 4.4%, and the emerging markets index gave back 7.3%. These all qualify as ample corrections within ongoing trends. Given the developments in Ireland, and more importantly the initial bullish response by the markets, we need to be open to the reemergence of the “risk on” trade.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Stock and Commodities Market Risk Trade Continues to Flourish on Band Aid Solutions / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010

By: Puru_Saxena

BIG PICTURE – Lets face it, governments always try to ‘kick the can down the road’.  Rather than deal with economic issues in the here and now, they prefer to postpone the pain.  Unfortunately, in their attempt to avoid painful economic recessions, the policymakers sacrifice the purchasing power of their currencies and they end up creating even bigger troubles for the future.  

Friday, November 19, 2010

U.S. Infrastructure Investing 101 / Stock-Markets / Infrastructure

By: Frank_Holmes

When you envision America’s future, do you picture collapsing bridges, cracking dams and reoccurring brownouts? That’s certainly not the picture of America many would like to paint but it is a possibility if our country’s long-term infrastructure needs aren’t addressed.

A new article from researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (America’s Aging Infrastructure: What to Fix, and Who Will Pay?) details the precarious nature of neglecting our nation’s network of pipelines, ports and power lines.
Here are some of the paper’s eye-popping statistics:

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Stocks, Gold, and Municipal Bonds Get Abused / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010

By: J_W_Jones

Tuesday's stock market action reminded overconfident bulls that bears might be hibernating, but they are not dead. The S&P 500 lost nearly 20 points during intraday trading while most commodities, specifically oil and precious metals took it on the chin. Treasuries finally caught a bid, but did anyone notice the absolute meltdown that has been going on in municipal bonds? The Ishares National Municipal Bond ETF (MUB) was down only 0.50% on the day, but the chart below speaks for itself.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Dow Trails in Narrowly Mixed Session / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010

By: Harry_Boxer

The stock market indices ended mixed today, but it was an interesting ride. They started out firm, running up to resistance at 2110 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1184 on the S&P 500. Then they backed off and coiled for several hours, tried a midday rally, but once again reached those same levels and couldn't get through, and backed and filled. With about an hour and fifteen minutes to go the indices suddenly rolled over hard to test yesterday's low, but bounced back sharply in the last 15-20 minutes to close mixed on the day.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Gold, Stocks, Bonds and Economy, No One Loves a Pessimist / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market

By: Brian_Bloom

Generally speaking a congenital pessimist is regarded as being anti-social. The “every silver lining has a dark cloud”  attitude to life is not appreciated by people who consider themselves to be mentally healthy.

But the flip side of this is that whilst an “every cloud has a silver lining” attitude tends to raise ones profile in the popularity stakes, it is likely to be just as inaccurate in its conclusions.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Bonds, U.S. Dollar, SP500 and Gold Trend Change, Are You Ready? / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010

By: Chris_Vermeulen

There have been some major trend changes recently and it looks as though more investments are about to follow. The real question though is… Are You Ready To Take Advantage Of It?

It has been an exciting ride to say the least with the equities and metals bull market and the plummeting dollar. But it looks as though their time is up, or at least for a few weeks. Traders and investors will slowly pull money off the table to lock in gains or cut losses and re-evaluate the overall market condition before stepping back up to the plate and taking another swing.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Stock Market Hanging By A Thread..... / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010

By: Jack_Steiman

For now that is the best way to explain how it's doing with regards to those key 50-day exponential moving averages. Barely hanging above them, but not exactly exploding away from them, so they're far away in the rear view mirror. We are testing close to them but not getting the push off that we've become accustomed to in this up trend over the past several months. The problem for continual upside is those nasty sentiment issues I will touch on later on in this report.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

How Far Could Stocks Fall? Probabilistic Analysis of the Stock Market’s Downside Risk / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010

By: Chris_Ciovacco

With the financial markets facing uncertainty about the balance sheets of banks and governments in Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, continued weakness in stocks, commodities, and precious metals remains a possibility. From a risk management standpoint, it is important for us to understand the possible downside risks in the short-to-intermediate-term. Since risk assets (stocks, commodities, precious metals) have been primarily driven by liquidity, their correlations have been strong since the 2010 summer lows. Therefore, the S&P 500 Index can be used as a proxy for all risk assets. If the downside risks are muted in stocks, they are also somewhat muted in commodities as well.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

ETF's To Ride China's Economic Growth Boom / Stock-Markets / China Stocks

By: Tony_Sagami

The political and financial leaders from the world’s 20 largest economies, or Group of 20, gathered in Seoul, Korea last week to solve all the world’s economic problems.

Well, at least they think they can but that is the foolish arrogance of all politicians who think that government policy is more effective than free markets. Not much happens at these G-20 meetings, and this one was no different. There was a lot of finger pointing and tough talking, however, and most of it was directed at China from our White House.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

U.S. Dollar and Bonds Trend Reversals Point to Stocks Bear Market / Stock-Markets / Stocks Bear Market

By: Bryan_Rich

In last week’s Money and Markets column, I wrote about Bernanke’s quantitative easing policy. The goal of the policy is to create higher stock and housing prices by pushing the dollar and interest rates down.

So how is the Fed’s plan going? Let’s start with the …

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Chile, The Emerging Market Investment for 2011 / Stock-Markets / Emerging Markets

By: Money_Morning

Martin Hutchinson writes: When I review each of the world's emerging markets in order to decide which ones to buy in 2011, I start with two questions:

•Is the market cheap?
•And has it under-performed over the past year?

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Stock Market Sell Off Accelerates and Extends to Sixth Session / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2010

By: Harry_Boxer

The stock market indices extended their slide into the sixth day and accelerated to the downside today, reaching new pullback lows, piercing some key support levels at 2100 on the Nasdaq 100 and 1180 on the S&P 500. They did manage to snap back in the last hour or so, but still had a very negative session.

Net on the day, the Dow managed to hold the 11,000 level, down 178.47 at 11,023.50. The S&P 500 was down 19.41 at 1178.34, and the Nasdaq 100 got hit for nearly 2%, down 37.85 at 2093.63.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

20 Years of Fed Stock Market Manipulation Revealed / Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation

By: Washingtons_Blog

Jeremy Grantham: "The Fed Has Spent Most of the Last 15, 20 Years Manipulating the Stock Market"

Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham - Chief Investment Strategist of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo- told CNBC last week:

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Odds Favor Further Downside For Stocks and Commodities / Stock-Markets / Financial Markets 2010

By: Chris_Ciovacco

In the very short-term, risk assets have negative alignment of the fundamentals and technicals. Concerns about excessive debt in Ireland seem to be moving toward a band-aid resolution, but the market could turn its attention to Spain or Portugal in short order. From a technical perspective, we have short-term MACD sell signals on the daily charts of the S&P 500, gold, silver, copper, and the euro. We have short-term MACD buy signals on the daily charts of the U.S. dollar and the VIX.