Dig out your old calendars, we're going back, waaaay back
By Jason Kirby - Friday, October 24, 2008 - 1 Comment
As markets continue to fall, analysts have simply started using historical dates to forecast…
As markets continue to fall, analysts have simply started using historical dates to forecast how low we could go. Today Montreal-based BCA Research warned that U.S. equities could fall to levels not seen since 2002. As it is, the last time the S&P 500 was this low was in April 2003:
Panic has returned in full force: equity and commodity prices are gaping lower, while the dollar and yen continue to surge. Investor sentiment has been crushed and despite extremely oversold conditions and appealing valuations, the bleak growth outlook provides little reason to be upbeat.
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Bottom line: Stay defensively positioned; a retest of the equity market 2002 lows (at least in U.S. equity prices) seems probable.
That’s gloomy enough. But it gets worse. Continue…
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Us too, us too
By Jason Kirby - Friday, September 19, 2008 at 12:00 PM - 4 Comments
I can’t believe regulators in Canada are even considering following suit with the U.K….
I can’t believe regulators in Canada are even considering following suit with the U.K. and the U.S. and banning short sellers, but they are, according to the Globe and Mail. It’s “under discussion” says Paul Bourque, senior vice-president of enforcement, policy and registration of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. That would be the self regulatory body made up of many of the financial firms who’s stock prices would benefit from a ban on shorts.
This is astonishing. Canadian financial firms have not been under any of the same pressures that U.S. firms have. And even if they had, banning short sales does nothing but create an artificially-inflated market. Traders and analysts are cheering today’s gains. It’s like watching someone pump a balloon full of helium and cut the string that’s keeping it tethered, and then marveling as it takes flight.
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Turn out the lights…
By Steve Maich - Thursday, September 18, 2008 at 4:21 PM - 1 Comment
the panic’s over….For a day at least.
But watching the action on the stock…the panic’s over….For a day at least.
But watching the action on the stock market today I was reminded of what a smart trader once told me.He said that if you’re looking to find a market bottom, you look for a day of furious back-and-forth trading, in which the market can’t seem to make up its mind on a direction. (Today certainly fit that description.)
He said you’re looking for a swing of around 500 points on the Dow, between the intraday trough and the intra-day peak. (Today’s swing was just shy of 600 points.)
And he said you want to look for a day that ends on a pretty-strong up tick, with a lot of buyers right near the close. (The Dow was up 410 points today, and about 300 of those points came in the final hour of trading.)
I am not calling a bottom here. I’m just passing this along for the sake of interest. It’ll be interesting to see if this guy’s approach to spotting a bottoming market holds up. In my gut I don’t believe this is the bottom. Everyone seems to agree this is the “worst market crisis since the Great Depression”, but the markets have only fallen about 21% from their highs.
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AIG – A question for our readers
By Steve Maich - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 11:58 AM - 17 Comments
Last night’s shocking bail out of AIG hasn’t done much to calm the fears…
Last night’s shocking bail out of AIG hasn’t done much to calm the fears roiling through the markets this morning. It has, however, got me to thinking.
Clearly Paulson felt he was in a no-win situation, and made a decision based on the cold calculus of pragmatism. He ahd to decide which was the lesss terrible of two terrible options:
