Insights

U.S. stock markets were only up 1% last week as a 2% Friday rescued what had been a down week. Friday's rally has carried into today with another 1.2% gain. It's a sign of how long things have been volatile when a 1% week is ho-hum. That's a 52% annual pace. Last week...

Stocks went back and forth from positive to negative today, trading on various rumors surrounding the weekend European Summit that markets hope will result in some sort of agreement on how to solve the Euro crisis. For example, the meeting is postponed, then an hour...

Stocks were down early until rumors apparently started to swirl and were confirmed by a Guardian (UK) report that France and Germany had agreed to leverage up the EFSF bailout fund to 2 trillion euros from 440 billion. Just before the close, Dow Jones said the 2...

On the Occupy Wall St. (OWS) protest, now spreading not only around the country but around the world students want to know why big, bad banks get bailed out but the government won’t bail students out from under huge student loans. The average student debt upon...

The market rallied the last two weeks on comments from German Chancellor Merkel and French PM Sarkozy that they had agreed to come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the Euro crisis, including dealing with Greece and ensuring that Eurozone banks were sufficiently...

The market has put in a 9-day run from the bottom of the recent trading to the top with only 2 or 3 days in that run that were basically flat. There was not one down day of any significance. The market is up 11%+, 15% if you go from the low intraday on 10/4. In the...

The DJIA was off slightly today, though the Nasdaq and small stocks were higher by 1/2%. Europe was mixed. We are not near the top of the trading range. Now that the euphoria has been eased for at least a day, the question is, can the market keep going up? The main...

DJIA 3.0% S&P 500 3.4% Small Stocks 4.3% Europe 1.9% Asia mixed Gold 2.55% Oil 3.8% Bonds anywhere from down slightly on treasuries to 2.1% for high yield This is continued trading on the Merkel and Sarkozy promises that Germany and France would find a way to...

The October newsletter is done and posted above under Newsletter. I welcome any feedback.

The S&P 500 gained another 1.8% today, closing at the high for the day. Bonds and the dollar were down and gold was up. Tomorrow is the monthly jobs report and won't spoil the party unless it is unexpectedly bad, which is a pretty high hurdle. In Europe, leaders...