Daily Market Update – January 22, 2016

 

 

 

Daily Market Update – January 22, 2016 (7:30 AM)

The Week in Review will be posted by 10 PM and the Weekend Update will be posted by Noon on Sunday.

The following trade outcomes are possible today:

Assignments:   none

Rollovers:   none

Expirations:  BAC

The following were ex-dividend this week:  none

The following will be ex-dividend next week: F (1/27 $0.15), FAST (1/27 $0.30), KMI (1/28 $0.125)

Trades, if any, will be attempted to be made prior to 3:30 PM EST



Daily Market Update – January 21, 2016 (Close)

 

 

 

Daily Market Update – January 21, 2016 (Close)

There was an impressive 300 point gain yesterday, but unfortunately it followed a 550 point loss earlier in the trading session.

So the day finally ended being about 250 points lower.

Today was another day of big swings, but it ended up with a decent gain, just as it looked like the gains in the futures were going to lead to another plunge after the first 30 minutes or so of trading.

If you’re keeping track it is starting to feel like 2008 and 2009 when people didn’t want to keep track and reportedly weren’t even opening their brokerage statement mailings each month.

If you are keeping track it’s really amazing that after nearly 3 weeks of trading in 2016 every single DJIA and NASDAQ 100 stock is lower on the year.

For its part Japan’s Nikkei Index is in bear correction territory and I don’t even know if there’s a word to describe the Chinese markets.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 was down 10% on the year as the morning was about to get underway and was now  about 14% below its all time high and about 12% below its December high.

Today’s gain helps, but not too much. What would help would be stringing a few of these gains together.

The turn of economic events hasn’t really been an issue, at least not in the United States as a reason to account for what it is that we’re seeing.

Continued shock from China’s economy and its stock markets, together with oil just going lower and lower is a really potent combination, but US companies aren’t helping themselves with their earnings reports, so far.

The expectations were for lower earnings, but as those expectations have become reality, the response has still been surprise.

It’s difficult to compare favorably to the past few years when so many companies were buying up their own shares as their prices were going higher and higher. Without the same kind of purchasing not only will EPS reports not move any higher as the share float decreases, but also there isn’t an underlying support mechanism for price with corporate buying drying up.

Just as in 2008 and 2009, just when you would think that it would make sense for companies to start buying up their shares when they were relatively cheap, the money has often been used up in buying sprees at just the wrong time.

So that catalyst is gone for now and it looks like earnings won’t be that catalyst either.

At the moment it looks hard to identify what would lead price higher, much less substantively higher.

With China and oil leading the way down, unless they reverse course, they would still be a potent offset to anything that could sent markets higher.

People had for years been saying that the growth being reported in China was illusory, with lots of growth coming from infrastructure projects, such as building new cities, that had no possibility of ever becoming productive in their own rights.

So it may be a while before China becomes a positive for US markets unless some real tangible consumer led growth starts coming to life.

Oil, on the other hand, while still a supply and demand driven commodity, briefly showed some life a couple of weeks ago, when for a few hours it spiked as there were rumors of potential Saudi and Iranian conflict.

That may be what it takes for oil to get going again in any meaningful kind of way.

So 2016
may be a very long and frustrating year ahead and if Larry Fink is correct and employment rates drop, it will be a tumultuous year all around.



Daily Market Update – January 21, 2016

 

 

 

Daily Market Update -January 21, 2016 (7:30 AM)

There was an impressive 300 point gain yesterday, but unfortunately it followed a 550 point loss earlier in the trading session.

So the day finally ended being about 250 points lower.

If you’re keeping track it is starting to feel like 2008 and 2009 when people didn’t want to keep track and reportedly weren’t even opening their brokerage statement mailings each month.

If you are keeping track it’s really amazing that after nearly 3 weeks of trading in 2016 every single DJIA and NASDAQ 100 stock is lower on the year.

For its part Japan’s Nikkei Index is in bear correction territory and I don’t even know if there’s a word to describe the Chinese markets.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is down 10% on the year and is now  about 14% below its all time high and about 12% below its December high.

The turn of economic events hasn’t really been an issue, at least not in the United States as a reason to account for what it is that we’re seeing.

Continued shock from China’s economy and its stock markets, together with oil just going lower and lower is a really potent combination, but US companies aren’t helping themselves with their earnings reports, so far.

The expectations were for lower earnings, but as those expectations have become reality, the response has still been surprise.

It’s difficult to compare favorably to the past few years when so many companies were buying up their own shares as their prices were going higher and higher. Without the same kind of purchasing not only will EPS reports not move any higher as the share float decreases, but also there isn’t an underlying support mechanism for price with corporate buying drying up.

Just as in 2008 and 2009, just when you would think that it would make sense for companies to start buying up their shares when they were relatively cheap, the money has often been used up in buying sprees at just the wrong time.

So that catalyst is gone for now and it looks like earnings won’t be that catalyst either.

At the moment it looks hard to identify what would lead price higher, much less substantively higher.

With China and oil leading the way down, unless they reverse course, they would still be a potent offset to anything that could sent markets higher.

People had for years been saying that the growth being reported in China was illusory, with lots of growth coming from infrastructure projects, such as building new cities, that had no possibility of ever becoming productive in their own rights.

So it may be a while before China becomes a positive for US markets unless some real tangible consumer led growth starts coming to life.

Oil, on the other hand, while still a supply and demand driven commodity, briefly showed some life a couple of weeks ago, when for a few hours it spiked as there were rumors of potential Saudi and Iranian conflict.

That may be what it takes for oil to get going again in any meaningful kind of way.

So 2016 may be a very long and frustrating year ahead and if Larry Fink is correct and employment rates drop, it will be a tumultuous year all around.



Daily Market Update – January 20, 2016 (Close)

 

 

 

Daily Market Update -January 20, 2016 (Close)

Yesterday was just another in a series of nothing but disappointments in 2016.

But what in the world do you say about today?

It was a day that the DJIA came back from its lows by 300 points, yet still finished the day 250 points lower.

What looked like it might be a good gain for the day yesterday, with the market following oil decidedly higher, turned into wasting a 200 point gain as oil decided to turn lower.

While the DJIA closed up slightly higher, it was clear that it wasn’t done following the path of oil, which has had nothing to make anyone think that it was going to head higher anytime soon.

With Iranian oil now coming on line and no one looking as if they’re going to cut back on production, there is really going to be a glut of the stuff and no one’s economy is stepping in to use the cheap stuff as an excuse to ramp up anything.

This morning, as oil was again down sharply, it was not too surprising that the market was continuing in the same path.

This morning, the futures were down nearly 300 points and just adding more misery to what 2016 has already been for most everyone.

Yesterday’s turnaround was pretty stunning, but not in a good way It’s getting hard to envision what, besides a sustained increase in the price of oil could lead to an equally sustained move higher in US stock markets.

Today’s turnaround was pretty stunning, too, but in a far better way.

With China still continuing to be a mess and with no one really knowing what the depth of that mess really is and with some of the belief that our own market could have another 10% downside ahead of it and could be a harbinger for some layoffs, you really have to wonder what the FOMC is thinking and what they will do, if anything.

While most came to the realization that having an interest rate increase would be a good thing, as it would have reflected the need to gently tap the brakes on a growing economy, now comes the realization that maybe the FOMC should have waited for some real tangible evidence of that growth.

With market psyches so fragile, it’s not to certain that they could then see an FOMC action to again reduce rates as anything but really bad news for the economy and therefore for company earnings and stock valuations.

Most people, even those who may be value hunters haven’t been biting at stocks at these lower price levels.

Yesterday was another good example of why it has been a mistake to do so as the market was headed higher. Those climbs have been very transitory for the past 2 months and have only led to more disappointment except for those who may have been very, very short term oriented,

The moves have been on a dime, as yesterday showed and even when thinking that a new position was in the clear, all it has taken is to turn away from the screen for a few minutes and to see that optimism get replaced by gloom.

That’s not a very healthy market and it seems so bizarre to want to see the price of oil climb higher and to want to see interest rates do the same.

When was the last time you lived in a world like that?



Daily Market Update – January 20, 2016

 

 

 

Daily Market Update -January 20, 2016 (7:30 AM)

Yesterday was just another in a series of nothing but disappointments in 2016.

What looked like it might be a good gain for the day, with the market following oil decidedly higher, turned into wasting a 200 point gain as oil decided to turn lower.

While the DJIA closed up slightly higher, it was clear that it wasn’t done following the path of oil, which has had nothing to make anyone think that it was going to head higher anytime soon.

With Iranian oil now coming on line and no one looking as if they’re going to cut back on production, there is really going to be a glut of the stuff and no one’s economy is stepping in to use the cheap stuff as an excuse to ramp up anything.

This morning, as oil is again down sharply, it’s not too surprising that the market is continuing in the same path.

This morning, the futures are down nearly 300 points and just adding more misery to what 2016 has already been for most everyone.

Yesterday’s turnaround was pretty stunning. It’s getting hard to envision what, besides a sustained increase in the price of oil could lead to an equally sustained move higher in US stock markets.

With China still continuing to be a mess and with no one really knowing what the depth of that mess really is and with some of the belief that our own market could have another 10% downside ahead of it and could be a harbinger for some layoffs, you really have to wonder what the FOMC is thinking and what they will do, if anything.

While most came to the realization that having an interest rate increase would be a good thing, as it would have reflected the need to gently tap the brakes on a growing economy, now comes the realization that maybe the FOMC should have waited for some real tangible evidence of that growth.

With market psyches so fragile, it’s not to certain that they could then see an FOMC action to again reduce rates as anything but really bad news for the economy and therefore for company earnings and stock valuations.

Most people, even those who may be value hunters haven’t been biting at stocks at these lower price levels.

Yesterday was another good example of why it has been a mistake to do so as the market was headed higher. Those climbs have been very transitory for the past 2 months and have only led to more disappointment except for those who may have been very, very short term oriented,

The moves have been on a dime, as yesterday showed and even when thinking that a new position was in the clear, all it has taken is to turn away from the screen for a few minutes and to see that optimism get replaced by gloom.

That’s not a very healthy market and it seems so bizarre to want to see the price of oil climb higher and to want to see interest rates do the same.

When was the last time you lived in a world like that?