The financial sector has chronically under-performed the broader market over an extended period of time. That dynamic may be in the early stages of a transformation. Last week the S&P 500 Index returned to its high of the year. This week it has made incrementally new all-time highs. By contrast the financial sector, as represented… Read More »
Interest rates have been moving lower and for a long time. If you were on a fixed income like a pension during this period you’re a happy person. The low interest rate environment produced little or no inflation. This preserved the buying power of your income over time. If, on the other hand, you bought… Read More »
On Thursday it looked like a triple top had formed on the Russell 2000 chart. Three consecutive bearish engulfing candles formed at channel resistance and it appeared the consolidation pattern was going to resolve to the downside. The analysis was posted here. As it turned out the small-caps were hit hard on Friday and the… Read More »
Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, called bitcoin a buy if its price falls below $5,000: Bitcoin will remain but not as a currency, predicts Mohamed El-Erian from CNBC.
It was a volatile first half of this year. The S&P 500 Index moved in a 12% range similar on a percentage basis to its opening range in 2016. But while the price ranges were similar the direction of price movement was not. The monthly and daily charts show several dissimilarities between the opening halves… Read More »
Amazon (AMZN) shares were up 3.6% on Friday but that simple statistic does not paint a complete technical picture. The position of the close relative to the open, as well as the direction of money flow is much more important. The stock gapped open in Friday’s session but immediately began selling off, closing near its… Read More »
It is pretty difficult to look at the weekly chart of PayPal Holdings (PYPL) and not believe that the stock is making a major top. There are several technical terms that could be used to describe the price action over the last six months on the weekly chart. It could be called a head and… Read More »
It was a difficult week for fundamental traders. It seemed like good earnings and the possibility of peace on the Korean peninsula could not drive the markets higher. Good news was bad news and that is bad news. Let’s take a look at the charts of the major market indices for clarification. The six month… Read More »
The dollar’s decline off its 2009 high is captured on this monthly chart of the PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP). As the long term decline accelerated a well-defined downtrend line formed between 20110 and 2014, along the path of the declining 40 week moving average. In late 2014 both the average and… Read More »
Shares of Lululemon Athletica (LULU) have been consolidating in a horizontal channel for the last four months, and the technicals are pointing to a volatile bullish breakout. In 2015, the stock was trading in a similar channel pattern and the Bollinger bandwidth reading was extremely low. A very low reading reflects narrow bandwidth and low… Read More »