Automakers Will Go Back to Capitol Hill For Money

The market action yesterday was pathetic. I am usually not so blunt, but there is no other way to sugar coat it. Most people want to know "what happened"? But there was no real smoking gun. It was a pure buyers strike.Stocks plummeted on relatively low volume. And if you don't believe me about the buyers strike, take a look at the ARMS Index (a measure of buying vs. selling pressure), which hit...

NBER Finally Admits U.S. in Recession

The agency charged with officially dating recessions in the U.S. finally came out and said that the U.S. officially entered the recent recession in December 2007. That means we are roughly 1 year into the current recession.I have no idea what took them so long to come to this conclusion, but better late than never I guess.Here are the comments from their press release:The Business Cycle Dating ...

Monday Morning Musings

The market is sharply lower in early trading on the heels of profit taking from last week's multi-day bounce, as well as lower oil prices after OPEC decided to leave output unchanged at its meeting over the weekend.Oil is down nearly -7% to below $51, and this is weighing on the energy and materials sectors. The dollar is higher vs. the Euro today, which is weighing on other commodity prices as...

Black Friday Is Underway

I don't know what happened to the tryprophan in my turkey yesterday, but I barely slept last night. I'm glad I'm not braving the crowds of Black Friday today.Speaking of Black Friday, reports show that shoppers are certainly out there in droves again, but as retailers have already started to slash prices, most shoppers will likely spend less than last year. And retailers sales will likely be we...

Trio of Economic Data Weigh On Early Trading

The market is lower in the first hour of trading, although unlike yesterday, the Nasdaq is bucking the broad weakness and trading nicely higher.In economic news, new home sales fell -5.3% in October to the lowest level since 1991. The bottom in the housing market remains elusive, but the pace of declines does appear to be slowing. I think that the many policy initiatives by the Administration s...

Charts of the Day: VIX and the Euro/Yen Cross

Today, the S&P 500 put together its first 3-day win streak since September 10th. Pretty surprising. I have still not put my cash to work, but if the market pulls back on light volume, without breaking back below the 800 level, I will likely begin to dip my toes in the water. Now to the charts--I talk a lot about the Yen and the "yen carry-trade", and its effects on global markets. I harped ...

Fed Rolls Out Additional Programs, Market Rallies

The Dow is up another 100 points in early trading on a positive reaction to two new programs that are being rolled out by the Fed and supported by Treasury.The first program is aimed at purchasing direct obligations from Fannie and Freddie, and is aimed at reducing the cost and increasing the availability of credit to purchase houses. The Fed will buy up to $100 billion in direct GSE obligation...

Recession Proof Jobs

The Jobfox Top 25 Most Recession-Proof U.S. Job Candidates: October 2008 rankings are out.The report provides the first look at the most in-demand jobs following continued stock market plunges, federal bailout announcements and general consenses among everyone that, yes, we are indeed in a recession.Each month, Jobfox produces a Top 25 “hot jobs” list based on a sample of the site’s employer ac...

Monday Morning Musings

The markets picked up where they ended on Friday with a rally. The market bounced from its Friday lows after Obama announced that Timothy Geitner would be named as Treasury Secretary.Asian markets were lower overnight, but our markets shrugged off their weakness from the start. Of course, its still a long day, so let's hope this rally doesn't fade into the close.One of the positive developments...

Weekly Wrap

Here is the weekly recap from Briefing.com:A horrible experience this year for investors got even worse this week. The losses in the major indices were material and new lows were set in this bear market move. In fact, with the losses seen this week, the entirety of the gains recorded during the bull market move from the October 2002 low to the October 2007 high were wiped out at one point and t...