CRUDE EXCEEDS $76... Crude oil surged $1.70 today to reach a new all-time high. A lot of that had to do with mideast tensions. It also had a lot to do with the big drop in oil inventories reported on Wednesday. And the fact that oil, like most... READ MORE
S&P RETESTS 200-DAY AVERAGE ... This is as good a time as any to take another look at a variety of moving average lines and signals. I'm going to show three different ways to do that. The first is the usual 50- and 200-day moving... READ MORE
DIVIDEND ETF IS OUTPERFORMING ... Last Friday I showed a few defensive groups that were showing upside leadership including consumer staples, pharmaceuticals, and utilities. Here's another one. Chart 1 is a daily bar chart of the DJ Dividend Index iShares (DVY) through the first six months of 2006. The... READ MORE
A RECIPE FOR STAGFLATION ... The June employment report gave a double dose of bad news to the stock market today. First of all, June job growth was very weak. That hinted at economic slowing. At the same time, June wages jumped at the fastest rate in five years. That'... READ MORE
CRB INDEX CLEARS 50-DAY LINE ... Commodity markets continue the new rally that began with the recent bounce off their 200-day moving average. Today's gain has pushed the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index back above its 50-day moving average. Fourteen of the nineteen commodities are in the... READ MORE
GASOLINE LEADS COMMODITY MARKETS HIGHER ... Commodity markets rose again today. The most bullish action occurred in the gasoline pits. Chart 1 shows the continuous futures contract for unleaded gasoline breaking out to a new ten-month high. Crude oil rose another $1.35 to close at 73.50. That'... READ MORE
GASOLINE TESTS YEARLY HIGH ... One of the things the Fed will most likely be looking at today and tomorrow is the price of oil, gasoline, and most other commodities. They'll do that to get some clue as the future direction of inflation (and the economy). They won'... READ MORE
MARKET ON FED WATCH ... Very little has changed over the last few trading days. The market has been attempting a modest price bounce to work off a short-term oversold condition. Major market averages (with the exception of the Dow) have been unable to regain their 200-day moving averages.... READ MORE
SHORT-TERM TREND STRENGTHENS ... The market is ending the week on a firm note. That's largely due to a short-term oversold condition and improvement in short-term market indicators. Chart 1 shows the daily MACD lines turning positive on the S&P 500 for the first... READ MORE
NEW HIGH FOR YIELDS ... The yield on the 10-year Treasury Note touched a new four-year high today. The weekly bars in Chart 1 show that the uptrend in long-term interest rates began exactly a year ago. The fact that bond yields were headed higher was confirmed in... READ MORE
MORGAN STANLEY LEADS BROKERS HIGHER ... Strong second quarter earnings by Morgan Stanley has pushed the brokerage stock up nearly 5% today and is leading a rally in that group and the market in general. Chart 1 shows the stock gapping back over its 200-day moving average on rising volume.... READ MORE
CONSUMER STAPLES ARE DAY'S TOP SECTOR... With today's stock market rally fading again, investors continued to favor the defensive qualities of consumer staples. That made consumer staples the day's top sector. That's nothing new. Chart 1 shows the Consumer Staples Sector SPDR... READ MORE
TELECOM HOLDERS ARE HAVING A GOOD YEAR ... With the market selloff that started in May, a lot of defensive groups have attracted new money -- including consumer staples and utilities. The telecommunications group belongs on that list. Chart 1 shows why. Telecom Holders (TTH) have been one of the top performing... READ MORE
After a harrowing decline the last 5-6 weeks, the StreetTracks Gold ETF (GLD) finally reached a support zone and RSI became oversold. This paves the way for a bounce and possibly a continuation of the long-term uptrend. A number of technical items have come together to mark support... READ MORE
(Editor's Note: This article was written on June 16th - over a week ago. Given the market's sideways motion since then, the article's basic premise remains valid. It is also instructive to compare commentary from the past with current conditions to see how the commentary... READ MORE
The NASDAQ Composite is now in danger embarking on an extended move lower. Quite simply, we use the 25-month month moving average to demarcate the difference between bull and bear trends; and given the Composite is trading only 22 points above this level within the context of an RSI... READ MORE
READING MY LIPS ... On Tuesday June 13, I gave a speech to traders on the New York Board of Trade. I used that opportunity to review the major intermarket principles relating to the dollar, commodities, bonds, and stocks. I talked about the impact of the dollar on foreign ETFs, and... READ MORE
"Summer-time... and the trading's easy!" Sorry for the singing folks, but we are in a happy mood here at StockCharts right now. Summer time always cheers people in the Pacific Northwest up (I wonder why? ;-). We're so happy that we decided to roll... READ MORE
BULLISH PERCENT INDEX SUGGESTS A BEAR ... The most difficult thing to determine in market analysis is the difference between a market correction and the start of a bear market. They look pretty much the same. Prices fall to an area of chart support (usually around the 200-day moving average)... READ MORE
BOND PRICES ARE FALLING AGAIN ... For the second day in a row, core inflation numbers came in higher than economists were expecting. Yesterday it was the PPI. Today's core CPI reading for May rose to 0.3%. [The actual CPI rose .4% during May]. Core inflation (excluding food... READ MORE
LEHMAN BREAKS 200-DAY AVERAGE ... We've been showing a lot of markets threatening or breaking their 200-day moving averages lately. Here's another one. Despite a 47% jump in second quarter earnings, Lehman Brothers has fallen 4% and, in so doing, has broken its 200-day... READ MORE
NYSE STILL SITTING ON 200-DAY LINE ... Friday's market action didn't tell us much about the staying power of Thursday's afternoon bounce. Market averages closed modestly lower in lighter trading volume. The good news is that the NYSE Composite Index remains on top of... READ MORE
DOW AND NYSE INDEXES CLOSE ABOVE 200-DAY LINES ... An afternoon comeback avoided a serious market breakdown. Chart 1 shows the Dow Industrials closing 8 points higher after heavy losses this morning. More importantly, the Dow closed on top of its 200-day moving average. Chart 2 shows the NYSE... READ MORE
GLOBAL BREAKDOWN... Rate hikes by central bankers in Europe and Asia (and more hawkish comments from Fed officials) have pushed most global stocks below their 200-day moving averages. Among the hardest hit are emerging markets like Latin America which are tied to commodity prices which are also falling. Chart... READ MORE
BEAR FUNDS ARE STILL RISING... A number of readers have asked for an update on a couple of bear funds that I recommended in mid-May. As you might expect, they've been rising as the market has been falling. Chart 1 shows the ProFunds Short OTC Fund (plotted... READ MORE
FIRMER DOLLAR PUSHES COMMODITIES LOWER... Although commodities have been the strongest asset class since 2002, and while they remain in a major uptrend, they're not immune to a downside correction. We may be seeing the start of one right now. One hint at that is the recent heavy... READ MORE
HOUSING INDEX HITS NEW 52-WEEK LOW ... More bad news on the housing front pushed the PHLX Housing Index to the lowest level in eighteen months. The weekly bars in Chart 1 leave little doubt that housing stocks have peaked. The recent breaking of the late 2005 lows has left... READ MORE
The Dow came down hard in May, but found support at 11050. This support level stems from January resistance and the April low. A key tenet of technical analysis is that broken resistance turns into support. The Dow broke above 11050 in February and this level turned into support in... READ MORE
On Tuesday we saw the market successfully retest last week's lows, then on Thursday there was a climactic rally that broke above last week's highs. This was a lot more positive than many people (including me) were expecting. The most significant short-term event was that... READ MORE
The May Swoon as we are apt to call weakness seen during the month had led to an increase in confusion amongst technical analysts. However, we would argue that is all about "time horizons", and we should confuse short-term movements with long-term time horizons as we... READ MORE
SERVER UPGRADE COMPLETED - We hit another major milestone last week when we upgraded our final database server. In addition to the SharpCharts2 roll-out, we've been quietly upgrading our 8 database servers to the newest, fastest hardware from Dell with the newest, fastest software from Microsoft. Last Monday... READ MORE
The chart below compares the Dollar Index (green line) to the CRB Index (purple line) since last September. The main message to be drawn from the chart is that the two markets have been trending in opposite directions which is their natural tendency. Dollar peaks last November and again in... READ MORE
The results are in! We have the five winners for our "Seeing Clearly with SharpCharts2" contest! Thanks again to everyone that entered. There were over one hundred entries and all of them were very well done. The judges' job was not easy at all. The five winners... READ MORE
CRB INDEX STAYS OVER 50-DAY LINE ... The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index jumped seven points today to close at 350. As Chart 1 shows, that keeps the CRB above its 50-day moving average. Chart 1 also shows that very little damage has been done to the commodity uptrend. While... READ MORE
THE DOW IS BACKING OFF FROM 2000 PEAK ... Whenever the market is at an important inflection point, it's usually a good idea to take another look at long-term charts. Not that short-term trends aren't important. But longer-term trends are more important. That'... READ MORE
VIX CONTINUES TO CLIMB ... We've produced a number of articles recently showing the CBOE Volatility (VIX) Index climbing to a new two-year high and warned about the danger that poses for the stock market. That's because the market usually trends in the opposite direction of... READ MORE
SO FAR SO GOOD... Global stock markets survived an important test this week. Almost everywhere we look in the world, we see major stock markets staying above or bouncing off their 200-day moving averages. The first three charts show some of the foreign markets doing the latter. Emerging markets... READ MORE
CRB GIVES UP ALL OF YESTERDAY'S GAINS ... Yesterday's sharp jump in commodity prices didn't last for long. The CRB Index fell more than nine points today to give up all of yesterday's gains and more. Three of the biggest percentage losers were... READ MORE
COMMODITIES BACK OVER 50-DAY LINES ... Commodity markets are staging a comeback attempt today and the rally is pretty broad based. Fourteen of the nineteen commodity markets are in the black today. The biggest gainers are copper (+11%), silver (+5%), gasoline (2%) and gold (+2%). Chart 1 shows the Reuters/... READ MORE
EMERGING MARKETS FALL WITH OTHER FORMER LEADERS... Last Monday I wrote about a number of sell signals that were being given in the market and in commodity-related stocks in particular. I wrote a paragraph entitled "Growing Aversion to Risk" in which I explained that former market leaders... READ MORE