Planet Wealth

It's always dangerous to bring up politics as people tend to be vehemently committed to their personal views.  However, did anyone else find it strange that week after week we have new jobless claims and yet on Friday the unemployment rate somehow fell to 9.7%?  Now we all know the government would never manipulate numbers for political gain (insert your own desired level of sarcasm), but is it possible that Massachussets has the Democratic Party in panic mode?  Anyone doing any research knows that the actual unemployment rate is closer to 17.3% so the number isn't believeabl

At the time of this post, the market is floating around the flat line as traders are waiting to see what the next move is following the big Friday reversal.  Right around 2pm on Friday (coincidentally also at a support level) a rumour began to circulate on the trading floor that a bailout package of sorts was going to be offerred to Greece from the EU.  Almost instantly, the market began to reverse to the upside.  The bulls would like to see more follow through today to show it was an actual tradeable reversal.  Thus far however, it appears the Friday rally may have

Rather than a long blog entry, check out tonight's Rant.

As mentioned in the last few days and although seemingly forgotten by the market pundits, as goes the US Dollar, so goes the market.  The market spiked higher at the open and then the dollar took off to the upside as well.  That move in the dollar sent the market lower instantly.  In addition to the resistance levels from last nights blog, we are closely monitoring the dollar.

The rally held for a second day, aided again by a weaker dollar.  There were more good earnings reports from CMI, WHR, ANN and UPS.  The interesting part was the commentary from the companies regarding the health of the US economy.  UPS said that it appeared the recession was over, although sales in the US were softer.....hmmm, doesn't seem to add up.  Their numbers were driven by stronger revenues from emerging markets.    WHR said that sales in the US were up as did ANN, which also gave good guidance.  The rally has some tough resistance ahead as it

The sellers jumped on the open pushing the slightly higher futures to the downside in early trade.  A great earnings report from D.R.

In addition to all the factors noted in today's earlier blog, the January ISM (which is manufacturing data) came in at a much better than expected 58.4.  The January reading was also much higher than the 54.9 reading in December.  For reference, any reading above 50 indicates growth.  The sellers took another couple of shots throughout the day, but never really threatened to reverse the rally and seemed to give up in the afternoon letting the bulls have the day.  The strength of today's rally may well hold for another day or two, however that will then be the big test of

The market followed the futures and opened to the upside.  In the first few minutes, the first selling attempt has already occurred.  On the positive side, the market is oversold and due for at least a bounce to hold a couple of days.  In addition, we have the start of a new month where normally mutual funds and institutions will put new money to work.  As mentioned in last night's podcast, the dollar bears watching as it is a bit overbought and weaker this morning.  That could well play into the bounce theory.  The day's action will be very interesting to watc

That's Greece as in the country, not "Grease" as in the play.  Blow-out earnings from the likes of AMZN, MSFT, our SNDK and even the launch of the AAPL iPad have not been enough to move the market higher.  We had a huge GDP report this morning, showing the economy grew 5.7%, which is the highest growth rate since 2003 which did move the futures higher.  That was then piggybacked by the Chicago PMI coming in at a higher than forecast rate of 61.5 (57.4 expected).  A reading above 50 indicates growth in the midwest region.  Even the Michigan sentiment survey came in h

After some intial volatility, the market is treading water waiting on the Fed announcement at 2:15pm est.  The expectation would be for a little more volatililty following the announcement as many will be dissecting every word in the statement.  However, it would be difficult to imagine any meaningful move prior to the "State of the Union" address this evening.