Charting Stocks

2009 will be a year of complete destruction for the US economy. 5 Million will lose their jobs. The Dow Jones Industrial average will break below 6,000. Municipalities will fail. Insurers will fail. The unemployed and foreclosed American population will take to the streets and begin rioting. The Greatest Depression is upon us.
Sound far fetched? [...]

One of the ways market technicians try to predict sector out performance is by conducting a relative strength analysis. In a bear market the price charts of most sectors and stocks are moving down with the market. Some sectors are moving down more than the market, and so they are relatively weaker, and some are [...]

Up and to the Right
These figures are the seasonally adjusted (massaged by DOL) estimate for the initial claims for unemployment in the United States. Numbers below 300,000 tend to indicate a tightening labor market whereas numbers above 400,000 are associated with increasing unemployment.

The 2008 US dollar rally is losing steam and may be coming to an end. I know that the run up in the currency left many in the financial world scratching their heads. How can the currency of a collapsing economy strengthen? Why, when trillions of new dollars are being created out of thin air, [...]

The nations number 2 toy retailer, KB stores has declared bankruptcy and will close down it’s 277 stores citing a “sudden” drop in sales. The companies 11,000 employees will be left looking for work.
KB Stores was founded in 1922. The store began as a candy wholesaler and later grew to become one of the largest [...]

Seasonably speaking, December is one of the best months to own stocks. For the past 20 or so years the average monthly return in the month of December has exceeded 3%. Considering how quick and intense this collapse has been, one must anticipate a counter-trend upward correction. Bear markets are notorious for these but you [...]

I’m amazed at the amount of optimistic propaganda peddled by the mainstream media as well as major investment houses. Countless are their graphs and comparisons which claim that buying and holding stocks is the best way to grow capital. They tell you that the average return of the stock market is 10% and if [...]

I noticed a couple of comments (OK just one) regarding inflation/deflation and how to know which is dominant. To get the answer I like to use a simple inflation/deflation indicator that I first learned about by reading John Murphy’s Intermarket Analysis book. I highly recommend reading this book to anyone who’s interested in charting stocks [...]

Straight from the horses mouth. Click the image for a better view.

Source: Bloomberg, Federal Reserve, FDIC, FHA, Treasury Dept.

News Flash! Recession Started a Year Ago Says NBER

It must be exciting to be an economist at NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) who just recently announced that the US has been in a recession for a year. I wish I could find a job which entails telling people what happened in the stock market [...]