01/30/2012

Europe was down because of news regarding Greek debt, so our market opened down in sympathy. Most of the day was spent recapturing the opening loss, and our market closed down only a small amount.

01/27/2012

One of Thursday's stories on CNBC.com had to do with some pros getting out of stocks because sentiment is becoming too bullish. Bullish sentiment can be a sign that an important market top could be lurking just around the corner, so let's look at one of our sentiment charts to see how bullish things are getting.

01/26/2012

European markets were up all day and closed up about 1.5%. Our SPX was up briefly at the open, but it soon ignored Europe and reversed into a slow deterioration that lasted the rest of the day.

01/25/2012

The market opened down in sympathy with European markets. It quickly recovered into the plus column after the Fed announced that it would hold interest rates low until late-2014.

01/24/2012

As has been the case for awhile, our markets seem to be taking their cue from European markets like FTSE to determine whether they will open up or down.  Yesterday it was up, today is was down.  I suppose the good news is that the market then spent the rest of the day slowly making up some of the ground lost on the open.  The SPX still closed down, but only by 0.1%.

01/23/2012

Europe was up almost 1% when U.S. markets opened, hence the boost up when the opening bell rang.  When Europe ended trading, our markets ended their rise and sank rather quickly. The rest of the trading day consisted of small incremental moves up.  The SPX and NDX managed to close barely positive, while the Dow closed a hair lower.

01/20/2012

The market rally on Wednesday was driven in part by a surge in housing stocks, which was triggered by a favorable housing report. Since the fundamentals of the housing market are not too thrilling, regardless of short-term gains, my curiosity was piqued and I pulled up some charts.

01/19/2012

Trading moved up slowly on the open and upon hitting resistance just above 1315, traveled mostly sideways for the rest of the trading day.  It was a relatively light news day with nothing really moving the market significantly in either direction.

01/18/2012

Today finally saw a sustained breakout above 1300.  The market opened higher after a positive housing report was released and kept on climbing as good news arrived out of Greece regarding a temporary settlement with private debtors.  

01/17/2012

Europe was up and consequently gave our markets a boost on the open.  However, as earnings reports began to arrive with bad news for the financial sector, the market pulled back to close up but not near the highs of the day.