The market periodically finds reasons to selloff, even in bull markets. This past week it was all about interest rates. You could see it coming. Interest rates had been rising for the last month. The yield on the 10 year treasury bond increased from 4.61% on May 8th to... READ MORE
The Nasdaq held support and led the market higher on Friday. Even though Thursday's decline was quite drastic, the Nasdaq never broke support from its May lows and the medium-term uptrend remains. Nasdaq support is just above 2500 and extends back to the January highs. The index... READ MORE
We have been watching prices trend higher for several weeks, even as internal strength trended lower and warned that price weakness could be ahead. Finally, this week prices broke down in a big way, signaling the start of a correction that could last at least a few weeks. Our first... READ MORE
Last week saw stocks sell off rather sharply for several days, of which the catalyst was the sharp rise in bond yields as inflation and too strong growth concerns too center stage. Since bond yields are now the tail wagging the stock market dog - we think it imperative to understand... READ MORE
We've moved about 70% of our servers into our new server room where our new chiller plant keeps the temperature a "toasty" 60F degrees at all times. We are working as hard as we can to ensure that there are as few interruption as possible as... READ MORE
Things got a little bumpy last week as the Dow had a big "down" day on Thursday. Friday's recovery was reassuring, but was any lasting damage done? One of the best ways to examine the overall "health" of the Dow is to look at... READ MORE
NASDAQ LEADS REBOUND... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back next week. - Editor The Nasdaq held support and led the market higher on Friday. Even though Thursday's decline was quite drastic, the Nasdaq never broke support from its May lows... READ MORE
RATE FEARS SINK STOCKS... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. - Editor Stocks declined sharply on Thursday as interest rate worries hit home. The 10-year T-Note Yield ($TNX) surged above 5% for the first time since July 2006. All of the major indices were down... READ MORE
TRANSPORTS TAKEN TO TASK... The Dow Transports led the market lower on Wednesday with weakness in Airlines, Rails and Truckers. This key Dow average broke resistance just last week and came crashing back down over the last three days. The pattern in May looked like a consolidation and the breakout... READ MORE
BOND YIELDS NEAR 5%... Bond yields reached another nine-month high today. Chart 1 shows the 10-Year T-Note Yield nearing 5%. I suggested last week that bond yields in excess of that level might make stock investors nervous. One sign that the market is taking notice of rising... READ MORE
CHINESE MARKET IS DUE FOR A PULLBACK... The Chinese market lost another 8.2% today. Chart 1 shows the Shanghai Stock Index threatening to break the 50-day average for the first time in nine months. To say that the Chinese market is over-extended is an understatement. Take a... READ MORE
GOLD AND SILVER JUMP ON GOOD VOLUME ... Apparently, central bankers have been selling some of their bullion reserves over the past few weeks which has put downside pressure on the commodity. News that the European Central Bank announced plans not to sell any more gold before September caused heavy buying... READ MORE
TRANSPORTS BREAK OUT ... On May 14, I showed three groups that were stalled at their early 2007 highs. One of them was the Russell 2000 Small Cap Index. Arthur Hill showed that index hitting a new high yesterday. That resolves the short-term negative divergence between large caps (which had... READ MORE
DOW CLOSES ABOVE 13600... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The Dow started the day weak, but firmed in the first hour and advanced throughout the day. The key average gained over 100 points and closed above 13600 for... READ MORE
REVISITING 13 AND 34 PERIOD EMAS ... I've written several past articles about a moving average system that has a remarkable track record. It's a combination of 13 and 34 period exponential moving averages. I use the word "period" because that EMA combination works in... READ MORE
RATE-SENSTIVE UTILITIES SELL OFF ... It's no coincidence that the recent jump in bond yields is causing profit-taking in utilities. That's because utilities are often considered to be the stock market equivalent of bonds. In other words, utilities do better when bond yields are falling,... READ MORE
STOCKS GIVE UP EARLY GAINS... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor Stocks were higher throughout the day, but gave up their gains in the late afternoon and closed mixed. Stocks swooned after reports hit the wires that Greenspan considered... READ MORE
Folks, we're merely in the second or third inning of a nine inning game. Let there be no doubt, the bulls are in charge. And they will remain in charge. This current bull rally goes beyond interest rates, earnings, inflation, blah, blah, blah. It's not that... READ MORE
The U.S. Dollar is trying to turn up for the fourth time since it topped in 2004, but this bottom looks more promising than the prior three. While the long-term trend is down, this bottom is the third confirmation of the descending wedge formation, a technical configuration which... READ MORE
We recently featured the S&P 500 Large Cap vs. Russell 2000 Small Cap ratio surrogate using the ETFs SPY:IWM; with the implication that the tectonic plates were shifting beneath the markets, with large caps slowly, but surely coming back to favor at the expense. This was simply... READ MORE
The Dow Jones Industrials continues to rise week after week setting new records as it goes. I thought it would be good to take a quick look back and see if history can teach us anything about what the Dow does to signal the end of these long up-trends.... READ MORE
JAPANESE YEN NEARS TEST OF OLD LOWS ... I wrote yesterday about weakness in foreign currencies pressuring gold. I focused on the Euro. However, the Japanese yen is falling much harder than the others. That has a lot of ripple effects -- some good, some bad. One is that it helps support... READ MORE
EURO STALLS AT OLD HIGH ... Gold usually trends in the opposite direction of the U.S. Dollar. So does the Euro. That means that the Euro and gold trend in the same direction. Up until recently, both markets had been rising together. Both are now on the defensive. Part of... READ MORE
HOME DEPOT WEIGHS ON RETAILERS ... The retail group continues to weaken and is starting to weigh on the rest of the market. Chart 1 shows the Retail Holders (RTH) closing below its 50-day moving average for the first time in a month. Notice the heavy downside volume bars over... READ MORE
RUSSELL 2000 IS STALLED AT FEBRUARY HIGH ... In trying to decide if the market is on the verge of a pullback, one of the clues we look for is whether or not some of the weaker market groups are able to move above their February highs. If they can, the... READ MORE
RETAILERS LAG MARKET ... On Saturday April 14, I ended a weekly wrapup with advice to "follow the leaders". The leaders at that time were materials, energy, utilities, telecom, healthcare, and consumer staples. One group not on that list was retailers. The next two charts show why. In a... READ MORE
OVERDUE PULLBACK STARTS ... It took a number of negative reports to finally cause some stock selling. Today's combination included bad retail sales figures, higher import prices, and a wider than expected trade deficit. It shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise however. On Tuesday... READ MORE
NO SURPRISES AT THE FED ... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The Fed gave the markets what they expected and left the Fed Funds rate unchanged at 5.25%. The Fed statement was also pretty much the same with... READ MORE
NEW HIGHS ARE SHRINKING ... Virtually every short-term indicator that we have show the market to be in an overbought condition. Some are starting to show short-term divergences. One example of the latter is the NYSE New Highs-New Lows Index ($NYHL). That's the red line line... READ MORE
ALCOA REACHES FIVE-YEAR HIGH ... Alcoa's takeover offer of Alcan Aluminum pushed both stocks sharply higher. Alcan surged 32% to a record high. Alcoa jumped more than 7% and was the market's star performer. The monthly bars in Chart 1 show Alcoa breaking through its early... READ MORE
We've been watching and following the semiconductors for the past many months, awaiting their attempt to join the stock market's rally. But it hadn't happened....until this past week. We have remained steadfastly bullish over the past couple years and became very bullish when... READ MORE
Even though the Dow is trading at all time highs and the S&P 500 is trading above 1500 for the first time since 2000, the Russell 2000 continues having trouble with resistance around 830. Thinking in terms of Dow Theory, I view this as a non-confirmation. A... READ MORE
The weekly chart of the S&P 500 Index below reveal that prices are behaving in a very bullish fashion. The index has broken above the gradually rising trend channel that prevailed from 2004. In March prices pulled back and successfully tested the support provided by the top of... READ MORE
NOTHING SPECIAL HAPPENING HERE - NOPE - It's certainly not worth your time to completely read Chip's article this week. Nope. I'd just skip it entirely. NETWORK SPEED BACK TO NORMAL WITH ZERO ERRORS! - We've been slowly and steadily getting the speed of our... READ MORE
One of the most consistent of all intermarket relationship is the inverse relationship between gold assets and the U.S. Dollar. Nowhere is that more evident than in the chart below. The green line plots the U.S. Dollar Index (which measures the dollar against six foreign currencies. The Euro... READ MORE
Our Spring Special is running throughout the month of May! Let me repeat that in case you missed it: Our Spring Special is on from now until May 31st! Sorry for the blatant plug, but every time one of these special periods end, we get flooded with message from people... READ MORE
SLOW JOB GROWTH BOOSTS BOND MARKET... Unemployment ticked higher during April and job growth was the slowest in two years. That hint at economic weakness pushed bond yields lower and bond prices higher (bond prices and yields always move in opposite directions). Chart 1 shows the 10-year T-note... READ MORE
QWEST JOINS VERIZON BREAKOUT ... On Monday I wrote about Verizon being on the verge of breaking out to a new five-year high. It accomplished that task on Wednesday as reported by Arthur Hill. That helped keep Telecom Holders (TTH) at the top of the leader board. Another telecom stock... READ MORE
FACTORY ORDERS LIFT THE DOW ... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The commerce department reported a strong increase in factory orders today and this bullish news propelled the Dow Industrials to a new all time high. Factory orders rose... READ MORE
IBM IS BREAKING OUT ... IBM was one of the new Dow leaders that we showed last week. I'm coming back to it today because the Big Blue has broken through its early 2007 highs near 100 (Chart 1). The recent jump in its relative strength line shows its... READ MORE