- Fed speakers are back this week. After the media blackout that had lasted the week prior to last into last week's policy decision, this week we'll hear from at least two Fed officials a day every single day. More will likely come out of the woodwork as well. So, Far, New York Fed Pres. John "Lightning" Williams on Tuesday morning, is the headliner.
- The Macroeconomic calendar is fairly full this week. The main events will be February Durable Goods Orders on Wednesday morning an...

Monday morning. Traders and investors can probably expect the trading volume to ebb sharply this day coming off of Friday's elevated "triple witch" expirations related burst of activity. Readers will likely recall the "Inside Day" posted by the S&P 500 on Thursday, which signaled reduced volatility. That was exactly what transpired on Friday, despite the surge in trading volumes. It really is incredible how accurate technical analysis has become since trading algorithms took over f...

Song of the Witches (from MacBeth)
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
From a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good. ...

Today is Wednesday. March 19th. This afternoon, for the first time since January 29th, or for the second time this year, the Federal Reserve's FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) will release an official statement on monetary policy. Happy Fed Day to all who celebrate. The festivities begin at 14:00 ET. That's when the above-mentioned statement (eight times a year) will be released alongside the committee's quarterly (first release for 2025) economic projections. A half hour later, Fed C...

President Trump has nominated current Fed Governor Michelle Bowman to the position of Vice Chair of Banking Supervision at the Fed. Bowman has served on the Fed's Board of Governors since being nominated to that group by this president in 2018. What does this mean for us investors? In my opinion, this makes it easier to invest in the banks as Bowman comes from a community banking background.
While Bowman has typically been a policy hawk in terms of interest rates, which wo...

Is it live? Or is it Memorex? Is this two-day rally the real thing? Do we at least have an actual "day one" bullish change of trend under our belts? The answer remains... not yet. Sort of. It's complicated. Twenty-four hours ago, we wrote that Friday's rally could extend for a few days while remaining nothing more than a counter-trend relief rally. That said, these markets came awfully close to actually proving something on Monday and in a way, may have.
Market breadth was conv...

So powerful. On Friday, winners beat losers at the NYSE by a rough 16 to 3, and at the Nasdaq by about 3 to 1. Advancing volume took a commanding 90.1% share of composite NYSE-listed trade and an almost as impressive 80.8% share of composite Nasdaq-listed activity. The deal is this.... aggregate trade dropped 3.1% on a day over day basis across NYSE-domiciled names on Friday and contracted 0.8% on a day over day basis across Nasdaq names. The simple reality is that there was less co...

What I see wrong with Friday's rally immediately, is this. The day was undeniably strong. A little short covering going into the weekend? Probably. Relief that there would be no shutdown of the federal government at this time? Definitely. We still have slowing economic growth, which is in my opinion a necessity after fiscal policy imbalances had been kept at such unsustainable levels for so long. Regardless, austerity hurts even if done for the right reasons. Even i...

Readers will see that MDB is well off of its year ago high of $509. The stock hit resistance at the "half-way" back point of that sell-off in early December. In recent days, the shares have regained their 50-day and 200-day SMAs only to re-lose them. That is not encouraging. Even worse, this morning, down more than 20%, MDB is trading below established support created last summer and autumn.
If that level, which is about $213, cannot be re-taken and held, then I have troub...

Or headed there? On Wednesday, the US Dollar Index hit its lowest level since November. Is that a function of currency traders preparing for the easing of monetary policy by the US central bank due to a weakening economy? It could also have something to do with the global bond market sell-off and the rising value of the Euro. The Euro is the most heavily weighted foreign reserve currency in the basket that the US Dollar Index is measured against. US Treasury debt securitie...