Insights

I said earlier today that the market might finally finish up today. The Dow finished up 60 while the S&P 500 was flat. Bonds and commodities were mixed, gold was up 1%. Yesterday and today we had some good signs. The volatility index (VIX) spiked up and volume was...

The employment numbers were better than expected, the first economic news of late that has happily surprised. The unemployment rate dropped to 9.1%. I wouldn't get overly excited. These numbers jump around a good bit and the rate can drop on people giving up looking...

What a nasty day in the stock market! After bouncing off support the selling resumed and got much worse in the last hour. The S&P 500 index was -4.8% for the day. All indexes are now in negative territory for 2011. Even gold and silver were down today as were oil and...

As I wrote this morning, the big thing driving the market down has been European selling to raise cash. Today, we started to see signs of panic selling as they are selling even the winners like gold. That is usually the last step in declining a market, though it can...

Stocks are roughly 1.5%-2% lower again today in the US and Europe. China was mixed, Japan up slightly and the rest of Asia down 1.2%. Interest rates are lower, gold is up 2% . . . stop me if you've heard this before. Q - Why are stocks continuing to drop? A - European...

The S&P 500 stock index finished 0.5% higher after dipping slightly below the 1240 level I said yesterday was key support. Nasdaq and small stocks were up more. Bonds had another good day. Gold and other commodities were down slightly. Fear has gotten fairly high....

Are municipal bonds about to plunge in price? Meredith Whitney and some others think so. I don’t think so. First, let’s hear the bears’ case. “There are about 45,000 municipal-bond issues in existence, with a market value of about $1.3 trillion, according to June 30...

The primary driver of this 10% correction in stocks has been the slowing economy here and around the world (see chart at Tuesday, 7:54 AM). How slow is it? Take a look at the chart below that plots wages, employment & production. This plots the % change, not the...

US STOCKS will open slightly higher this morning but Asia and Europe are lower again and we'll have to see how this little bounce goes. Despite the sharp drop the last two weeks, markets are not deeply oversold. Volume has been heavy on selling and light on rally...