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July 20, 2021
The key thing today, however, isn’t how the stock market starts, it’s how it finishes. Given the market’s behavior since the lows in March 2020, it should come as no surprise that it is attempting to bounce back from yesterday’s selling.
July 1, 2021
Today marks the start of July and the beginning of the third quarter. The first day of a new month tends to be accented with a positive bias, particularly in an uptrending market where liquidity is widely available, as new money gets put to work.
June 29, 2021
The trading winds have shifted this morning. The technology stocks, which enjoyed a tailwind yesterday, are now facing a headwind. Conversely, cyclical stocks, which dealt with a headwind yesterday, are now benefiting from a tailwind.
June 16, 2021
The market awaits the FOMC policy statement at 2:00 p.m. ET and Fed Chair Powell’s press conference at 2:30 p.m. ET. The benchmark index has set an all-time intraday high in three of the past four sessions.
June 15, 2021
The S&P 500 futures trade roughly in-line with fair value a day after both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed at record highs. The futures market was trading slightly higher earlier today, but it’s ticked lower following the release of weaker-than-expected retail sales data and hotter-than-expected PPI data.
June 10, 2021
The S&P 500 is 3-for-3 this week in teasing investors with the prospect of closing at a new record high, but failing to do so. It has been a remarkably choreographed flirtation, too.
June 8, 2021
This morning, the closing high will be put to the test again and it’s looking as if the S&P 500 will get a passing grade — initially anyway.
June 3, 2021
There is a risk-off tone permeating the equity futures market due in part it seems to the crazy risk-on tone that has been permeating the meme stocks.
May 25, 2021
There was some heady price movement in the mega-cap stocks yesterday, long-term interest rates are down again this morning, and Moderna (MRNA) said its COVID vaccine was 100% effective in adolescent trials.
May 20, 2021
One gets the feeling this morning that the market could do just about anything today and it would be perfectly understandable.
May 19, 2021
This morning, there are a lot of bottlenecks in the capital markets. First, there is a crash to report. That would be in the cryptocurrency HOV lane.
May 18, 2021
A market that is in a lateral consolidation phase doesn’t go sideways in a straight line. It goes up some days and goes down others. Yesterday was a down day. Today looks like it could be an up day.
May 10, 2021
The April employment report was weak, yet the stock market drew strength from it, rallying on the duel notion that it will keep the Fed sitting tight for longer with its easy monetary policy and that the soft hiring activity will soon give way again to much stronger hiring activity.
May 5, 2021
Growth stocks had a tough go of it yesterday, but when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Many are on the rebound this morning, evidenced by the 96-point gain in the Nasdaq 100 futures, which are trading 0.7% above fair value.
April 27, 2021
There has been a flood of corporate news since yesterday’s close, but like many other days of late, there has only been a drizzle in terms of the reaction in the futures market.
April 26, 2021
The S&P 500 made a run Friday at running its winning streak to five consecutive weeks. In the end, it failed. That winning streak was broken, but when it was all said and done, it felt more like a gain than a loss.
April 19, 2021
The S&P 500 has gone up in each of the last four weeks, gaining 7.0% in the process. That’s a big move in its own right and a massive move on an annualized basis, so it can be forgiven (and understood) that the S&P 500 futures are looking a little tired this morning.
April 15, 2021
There hasn’t been a break in the bull market action. Granted there have been pauses here and there, with growth leading one day and value leading the next or the stay-at-home trade outperforming one day and the reopening trade outperforming the next.
April 12, 2021
The stock market rode into the weekend on a high note. In fact, it was the highest of notes for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500, which closed at record highs.
April 9, 2021
There is some mixed action in the futures market this morning that — surprise, surprise — is the opposite of what was seen yesterday. Recall that yesterday featured the outperformance of the Nasdaq 100 thanks to leadership from the growth stocks.
April 7, 2021
The calendar says we’re in the month of April, yet the “action” in the stock market makes it feel more like mid-August (aka “the summer doldrums”). Things have settled down, but the question is, for how long?
April 1, 2021
The S&P 500 futures trade 21 points, or 0.5%, above fair value to begin the month of April amid follow-through strength from the mega-cap/growth stocks. The Nasdaq 100 futures outperform and trade 1.2% above fair value.
March 29, 2021
The S&P 500 futures trade 20 points, or 0.5%, below fair value to give back some of Friday’s late-day rally. The negative bias partially appears to be an extension of last week’s choppy price action.
March 25, 2021
This has been a defiant market so far this week. The yield on the 10-yr note has dropped 14 basis points to 1.60%, yet the major indices are down.
March 22, 2021
It’s not quite the end of March, but we’re getting close. What that means is that millions of NCAA Basketball Tournament brackets have been busted. It also means that one is likely to hear the word “rebalancing” quite a bit this week.
March 19, 2021
The spike in long-term rates yesterday was the catalyst for the weakness in the growth stocks, which broadened out to include more stocks as the day progressed. The selling was the most pronounced, though, in the high multiple stocks.
March 16, 2021
The early action today shows a similar line of thinking versus yesterday. That line leads to the outperformance of the growth stocks, many of which could also be classified as technology stocks.
March 9, 2021
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are up 38 points and are trading 1.0% above fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 300 points and are trading 2.5% above fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 97 points and are trading 0.3% above fair value.
March 2, 2021
It will be interesting to see if yesterday was the high watermark for the week for the major indices. It’s possible given how strong the gains were.
February 26, 2021
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are up 15 points and are trading 0.4% above fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 116 points and are trading 1.0% above fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 29 points and are trading slightly below fair value.
