Insights

The unemployment report came out today and was for the second month in a row, disappointing. The market headed lower but Europe was partly to blame as their markets had been down 1% by the time ours' opened. So far 2012 rhymes with 2011. In the 1Q of 2011 economic...

UNG, which is the ticker symbol for the US Natural Gas ETF is up 15% over the last 7 trading days from its record low. Natural gas prices hit $1.5 at that time. To buy natural gas directly you have to buy commodities, which I don't do, so I use UNG as a substitute. It...

Stocks finished lower by 0.4% today (S&P 500 index) which was actually a pretty good performance considering Europe was down today Apple, which because of its size has tremendous influence on the S&P 500 index was down 3% today Stocks had run up nearly 4% in the...

U.S. stocks finished the week up roughly 3% on the S&P 500 index, more on the Nasdaq and small stock indexes. That gained back most of the decline so far in April. Europe was up a similar amount, Asia generally finished a little lower this week. For the week other...

After a 4% correction since April 2, the last 3 days have been higher and have earned back most of that drop. "Can they push to new highs" is the question? The economic news has been disappointing this month but I think Ben Bernanke, the stock market's best friend,...

The major European markets were down 2% - 3% today on two news stories - French President Sarkozy's second place finish in the first round of the French presidential elections and the impending collapse of the Dutch government over disagreemnts on austerity measures....

Asia had a good day today but of course they open and close very early. Europe was down over 1% today and that carried over to U.S. markets which closed down roughly -0.3% to -0.7%, depending on the index. Gold was down -0.6%, oil was down -1.4%. Bonds were also...

Europe shot higher today on news that the auction of short-term Spanish debt went very well today. The yield was actually slightly lower than expected and there was enough demand to buy all that Spain had offered to sell. Now, much of that buying was by Spanish banks...

Stocks were higher today, about 3/4% on the S&P 500. That was in line with Europe. Asia and South America were mixed - some markets higher, some lower. If there is any doubt that the US is heavily focused on Europe, consider that the S&P 500 index is moving almost in...

The April newsletter is posted online. Click on Newsletter at the top of the page and click on the latest one. This is a forecast issue. I know most of them come out in January or December but I am publishing this at what I think is a significant turning point.