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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 05/09/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: The indicator reviews of late have indicated a stalling out of the market bounce since mid-July, with negative dollar flows into stocks and more evidence of sector rotation than actual sector trending. With Monday's reversal, we've seen a steady selling sentiment hit the stock market, taking us to multi-week price lows. Here are a few thoughts on the market...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 05/09/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: Here we see the Cumulative NYSE TICK from July 1st through Thursday. Recall that the NYSE TICK measures the number of NYSE stocks trading on upticks minus those trading on downticks. This gives us a relative sense for buying vs. selling pressure across the broad range of stocks. The Cumulative TICK adds the one-minute values for the NYSE TICK to a running total,...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 25/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: With increasing globalization, every asset class is related to every other one. This makes it useful for understanding how these relationships shift over time. Many times, movements in one asset class will anticipate movements in others. With an understanding of how these different groups are moving--stocks, bonds, interest rates, and commodities--we can appreciate...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 21/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: A number of traders have commented to me on how choppy the market conditions have become. A strong movement seems under way, and then it just as strongly reverses. As a way of looking simply at recent trading conditions, I went back to the start of 2007 and investigated three-day returns as a function of the prior three-day returns. Specifically, I looked at...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 20/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: One way that investors signal their sentiment toward the economy is through their differential interest in various classes of bonds. If there is a flight to safety, we expect Treasury bonds to outperform other bond classes. If investors are risk-seeking, they will gravitate to high-yield bonds. If the outlook is questionable for companies, we will see corporate...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 18/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: It's been a tricky environment for sector relationships since the July bottom. The U.S. dollar has turned sharply higher, particularly against European currencies; commodities have fallen significantly; U.S. stocks have bounced; and the shares of emerging markets have lagged. You couldn't ask for a more thorough unwinding of themes from earlier in the year....
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Condor Options (Free subscription) | 21/08/2008
... had a positive close, but some follow-through will be crucial. Some items worth perusing tonight: Brett Steenbarger on using the relative strength of XLY vs SPY as a gauge of investor sentiment. Bespoke tracks the relationship between high yield credit spreads and the S&P. If the widening of these spreads is really a lagging indicator, maybe we still have some upside to go in equities....
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 14/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: * Everyone has a stop-loss level: For some, it's a price; for others, it's a pain threshold. * It's not stress and emotion that get in the way of trading; it's the stress and emotion that results when trading becomes personal: about you, rather than about supply and demand. Complete Story »
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 09/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: One way I like to track themes in financial markets is by tracking rolling correlations. These can be correlations among stock sectors/indexes or between equities and other asset classes. Here are a few correlations of daily returns since June that caught my eye: Complete Story »
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 07/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: Here we see three charts ( click on charts to enlarge ) from yesterday's trade: the Standard and Poor's 500 Index (SPY; top chart); the Financial sector ETF (XLF; middle chart); and the Housing sector index ($HGX; bottom chart). Note that, as the S&P 500 Index moved to new highs in the afternoon, the financial and housing stocks failed to follow. This is what's...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 04/08/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: Since July 15th, we've had a rally in U.S. equities, with the S&P 500 Index (SPY) up over 4%. Above we can see the performance of markets in other countries, including Germany (EWG); Hong Kong (EWH); Japan (EWJ); China (FXI); India (EPI); Russia (RSX); Brazil (EWZ); Canada (EWC); and Australia (EWA). What we can see is that the rally has been most robust in...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 29/07/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: Since looking at how many troubled banks are out there and their geographic distribution , I've been focusing my attention on financial issues that offer more bank for the buck. These are banks that, largely because of conservative lending practices and capital management, have not followed their sector lower and, indeed, are up on the year. I identified the...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 24/07/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: I recently noted the stock sector rotation that had dramatically shifted patterns of performance in the market. Tracking these themes has been key to trading the market so far this week. Above we see percent changes in the S&P 500 Index (SPY); the financial sector within the S&P 500 universe (XLF); the homebuilders index ($HGX); the consumer discretionary stocks...
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Seeking Alpha (Free subscription) | 18/07/2008
Brett Steenbarger submits: I had to smile when I came across this 2002 article from Forbes titled "Dull is Good: Preferred Stocks". As the charts for two preferred stock ETFs above depict, preferred stocks have been anything but dull in recent weeks. The reason for this, as Index Universe points out , is that the majority of preferred shares are issued by companies in the financial sector....
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Moomin Valley (Free subscription) | 18/07/2008
I'm continuing to think things I discussed in . I clearly can't handle the medium term (from more than a day to month) type of trades very well. Even though there are periods when I've done OK with them, there are plenty of other periods when I've gone off the rails. Bruce Hong some of the character traits that make people less suited to trading. I clearly have some of these to some degree. Brett...
