Insights

Once again US stocks shrugged off an early selloff that was probably partly due to European selling as a follow through to lower markets today in Europe. US stocks were up about half a percent but small stocks tripled that today. Oil was up nearly 2% for the day. The...

US stock indexes finished 0.1% - 0.2% higher today but small stocks were lower by more than 0.5%. European stocks were down a bit while Asia was mixed. Both gold and oil were up over 2% today. You should probably have one or both in your portfolio. Most bonds were...

The Wall St. Journal today reported on recession hitting Europe again as austerity measures in certain countries pull down the European Union as a whole. Most economists don't expect a deep recession. Here is the excellent chart from the article showing the recession...

China is now the largest gold market. Chinese demand for gold keeps growing as more people move up the economic ladder. Also, the Chinese New Year ushered in the Year of the Dragon, an especially auspicious thing in Chinese folklore and gift giving has been higher...

It's been volatile but the stock market after opening in line with yesterday's drop rallied nicely. Several of the last few days have had drop or pops as the 5 day chart to the left shows. The market so far is only slightly higher than it was yesterday but that's OK....

Yes, I know, more about Greece. But, Greece is center stage in the investment world right now. It is having trouble getting an austerity package done with enough credibility to make its European lenders comfortable. Soft deadlines keep passing and German and other...

February is usually one of the poorer months for stocks and according to Art Cashin, one of the best guests CNBC has on, mid-February is often when a pullback begins. Markets are fairly overbought right now. In the late December through today portion of that rally, it...

No sooner did I comment on how many days the market had been up so far this year and we had a drop of 0.7% in the US and double that in Europe. Gold was down as were bonds and oil. Usually when confidence in the stock market gets too high, the market will fall. The...

US markets were up again slightly today, so what else is new? You can't fill one hand counting the number of down days so far in 2012. No one is complaining of course. I'd like ten more months of what we've had so far in January and February, please. Gold and bonds...

The market was up slightly today while it waited for concrete news on Greek creditors and politicians. Gold was up 1.5% and is up almost 12% since Jan 1. Silver is up 23% in the same time. The YTD gain in the two precious metals are probably the result of inflation...