There is a common idiom that states, “a rising tide lifts all ships.” For investors, that saying suggests when the broad market is going up, most stocks should go up as well. On a more macroeconomic level, the same principle applies on a sector basis; if a sector is showing signs of strength, most investors […]
Read MoreDidn’t it seem like at the end of last week, the market started holding its breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop about trade? President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping finally met in Tokyo this weekend, with what a lot of experts seem to believe was the best realistic result of the meeting […]
Read MoreThe longer you invest in the stock market, the more familiar you become with a lot of the concepts that are used to define and justify the various investing methods that drive them. Years ago, as I began to incorporate technical analysis and shorter-term trading strategies into my system, one of those basic principles was […]
Read MoreSince the end of April, it hasn’t been all that unusual to see stocks -10% or more. Considering, however that even with its own pullback from a new all-time high in the last three weeks, the stock market remains more than 14% higher year to date, the normal expectation right now when you look at […]
Read MoreLike most sectors in the market this year, the Basic Materials sector has seen a sizable move to the upside. As measured by the S&P 500 Materials Sector SPDR ETF (XLB), the sector is up a little over 11% since the beginning of the year. This is a sector that operates with a fairly high […]
Read MoreThis year has seen the broad market rally strongly to begin testing its all-time highs established in September of 2018. That rally has favored just about every sector of the market, including the Materials sector. As measured by the S&P 500 Materials Sector SPDR (XLB), the sector is up a little over 15% year-to-date. Normally, […]
Read MoreNo matter what current market conditions are, one of the biggest challenges for an investor is finding stocks that fit their investment preferences at any given time. The market ebbs and flows from high to low extremes, and those shifting conditions mean that investing strategies may offer up more opportunities in one environment, and fewer […]
Read MoreOver the last week, the market has been muted by concerns about a weakening global economy. That concern is compounded at least by the effects of tariffs between the U.S. and its trading partners over the past year. Steel and aluminum tariffs, for example were among the first imposed, and the target of those tariffs […]
Read MoreSince the beginning of 2018, the Materials sector has been one of the worst-performing sectors in the market. Despite an increase since the end of last year of a little more than 10%, the sector remains down more than 14% since January 2018. Concerns throughout the period about increasing commodity costs have been compounded more […]
Read MoreAfter closing out the year on a decidedly negative note, and leaving more and more investors guessing that 2019 could be the year the market, and the economy officially turns bearish, stocks generally rebounded over the last week. The market seems to have decided to use the market’s drop to near-bear market levels in December […]
Read MoreIt seems like the global market has been waiting for the last couple of days for the next shoe to drop in the U.S. The Christmas holiday meant that U.S. markets closed early, and remained closed for Christmas Day itself as always, but that didn’t stop markets in Asia from their regular activity, and most […]
Read MoreOnce the stock market bottomed at the end of October, the major market indices all rallied. Some of that rally lost steam yesterday and pushed all three major indices into negative territory for the last 30 days; but one of the sectors that really seems to have benefited is the Materials sector. At the beginning […]
Read MoreIn yesterday’s post, I wrote about the Materials sector as a segment of the economy that seems have started to attract the interest and attention to institutional investors. Sector rotation is an approach to market analysis that suggests that if you want to find good investments in any market, it’s a good idea to pay […]
Read MoreThe month of October put investors on notice that volatility in the stock market wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. I think it makes sense; investors are becoming more and more aware of the difficulty associated with extending an unprecedented period of economic expansion.
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