Skip to main content

Markets bounce -- is it for real?

Markets have been up two days in a row now. The charts show that we are bouncing off a support level. Are the fundamentals in place to support a real rally? Or will we end up with another lower high?

It sometimes helps me to create a list of recent news items and try to interpret their impact on the markets and their meaning in terms of the economy. I look to see whether the evaluation changes anything in my current outlook or investment strategy. Does positive news outweigh negative news? Is the sun about to shine on the markets?

Herewith is a selection of recent news items I've been thinking about.
  • WalMart reported an increase in same-store-sales but most other retailers didn't. Is this an indication that consumer spending is slowing down? That consumers can only afford to shop at bargain retailers?
  • The Consumer Electronics Show has been going on in Las Vegas. It has been a complete bore. There are no killer applications or products in sight. What does this say about the health of the tech sector? Can MacWorld save tech all by itself?
  • AT&T's CEO commented that the company has seen an increase in consumers who have had their service terminated due to non-payment. This worries me for two reasons. First, it is surprising to hear that people are losing phone service. This is basic stuff that is typically last to go when consumers are cutting back. Second, it was surprising to see the markets react so negatively to comments that a small percentage of a huge company's customers were in financial trouble. It shows how skittish investors are at the moment.
  • Merrill and Citi are begging for dollars again. It is said they chasing more sovereign wealth funds. They must have a ton of bad news that they are about to dump on investors.
  • Weekly jobless claims were down. This is good news but the market shrugged it off because it didn't have much impact on the moving averages. Skittish investors again.
  • The market was up yesterday but breadth was not good and new lows continued to swamp new highs. Was yesterday just an oversold bounce? The beginning of that bounce off the support level?
  • Today Capital One provided guidance indicating the consumer is having problems paying credit card bills and auto loans. The company is raising reserves and forecasting diminished profits. Another indication the consumer is no longer going to prop up the economy?
  • Goldman Sachs lowered earnings estimates on a slew of financial companies. With the SPDR Financial ETF (XLF) already nearly 30% off its highs, I thought maybe we were getting somewhere near the bottom for financials. Maybe not...
  • The market jumped today on news that Bank of America may buy Countrywide Financial. BofA is already a major investor in the struggling lender that has been the subject of bankruptcy rumors. Should this be significant enough to trigger a rally?
  • The market spiked at midday and then fell back on hearing Bernanke say more interest rate cuts would be provided as needed. As if that wasn't a foregone conclusion.
  • After all the ups and downs, the market closed up today. Breadth was decent on the NYSE but not particularly inspiring on the NASDAQ. New lows continue to swamp new highs. A continuation of yesterday's bounce? It doesn't seem like the bounce is on very firm footing but we are oversold and at support, after all...
  • I would be remiss if I didn't mention a couple of pieces of clearly positive company news. Both DuPont and Alcoa reported excellent earnings and provided positive forward guidance.
Well, evaluating recent events doesn't do a lot to give me confidence that the markets are actually in true rally mode. Simply put, the news still makes me nervous.

In the meantime, though, we will no doubt see the major averages moving up for a while. As mentioned above, we are oversold and bouncing off a support level. We are bound to get an interest rate cut soon. Earnings season is starting. All we can do is stay alert and be ready to act as necessary.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brazil - in a bubble or on a roll?

A couple of years ago, no one recognized the real estate bubble even though it was under everyone's nose. Now, analysts and bloggers are seeing bubbles everywhere they look. One of them, they say is in Brazil whose Bovespa stock market index has doubled in the last 12 months. Does the bubble accusation hold water? I don't think so and here are 7 reasons why Brazil is by no means a bubble economy: Exports have held up over the past year thanks to demand from China for Brazil's soya exports and iron ore. This was helped by the the Brazilian government's drive to improve trade links with Asia and Africa. Export diversification, spurred by a more active trade policy and increased focus on "south-south" trade under current president Lula, helped mitigate the decline in demand from OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries A "sensible" economic framework has been in place since the 1990's. This has included inflation
4 comments
Read more

Trade Radar gets another update

Some of our data sources changed again and it impacted our ability to load fundamental/financial data. In response, we are rolling out a new version of the software: 7.1.24 The data sourcing issues are fixed and some dead links in the Chart menu were removed. So whether you are a registered user or someone engaged in the free trial, head over to our update page and download the latest version. The update page is here:   https://tradingstockalerts.com/software/downloadpatch Contact us if you have questions or identify any new issues.
Post a Comment
Read more

Unlock Stock Market Profits - Key #1

This is the first in an ongoing series of articles where I discuss what I feel are keys to successful investing. It is based on a post that provides a summary of the ten keys that individual investors should use to identify profitable stock trades. ( Click here to read the original post ) There are two basic steps to investing. First, you need to find stocks that seem to have some potential. Then you have to determine whether these stocks are actually good investments. There are many stocks that at first glance look interesting, but further research reveals that there are too many negatives to warrant taking a position. This first post in the series starts at the beginning: getting good investment ideas. Key #1: If something special is happening to a stock, it will be reflected in some kind of unusual activity in the markets. As individual investors, we will never be the first to know; however, unusual activity can be an early sign that allows us to follow the Wall Street professional
2 comments
Read more