Blog Archive

I was curious this evening, being a cold Saturday night with negative 10 windchill, so I looked at the specific numbers for the S&P move, just as I did for the Dow.
The October 2007 high print was 1565.

The March 09 low was 666.79 *How is that for you fans of the Omen movie… 666? Did that get any mention in the media? Kind of creepy…

Any how, the math, thankfully for my small brain, is easy. 1565.15 minus 666.79 gives us 898.36 …… Half of that figure, (the total down move from high tick to low tick) is 449.18…. Add that […]

Yesterday, I was searching for some more examples of the 50 percent pullback phenomenon as a technical analysis trading tool. The most glaring of these we have just experienced. The high in the Dow Jones as 14,280, The previous low going back to our 2002 lows began the last bull rally. The low in 2002 was 7280.. During the meltdown last year, we had a pause in the sell off at a specific point. That point was at the 10780 level.

Look at a chart, and you will see, we spiked down to that level in Sept of 2008. We had a flurry of […]

Today we have seen most of the action coming off of the Dollar Index jump higher. Crude Oil and the Metals moved lower as the dollar moved higher. Surprisingly the grains held their bids in the face of lower crude prices and the higher dollar.
That suggests underlying strength. Perhaps the market is telling us something different than the fundamental supply demand picture is showing.

Running the numbers:

March Wheat has a high of 541 3/4,a a low at 532 and a last trade at 537, unchanged on the day. March Corn has a high at 406, a low at 390 1/2 and a last […]

I am sure you all know by now that the Dollar Index has popped above key resistance today at the 76.25 level. A conservative technical analysis technique projects out a target upside to the 80.00 level. This is based on a very simple concept, I learned in the Thomas Murphy Book Technical Analysis of the Futures Markets. I highly recommend it to you all.

So, its very basic, but those are the best chart patterns, I believe over time. If I had more time, I could show you many different instances of how effective looking at a 50 percent retracement is a viable strategy. And […]

In these weeks before Christmas, most sensible people are closing their books and looking for a good deal on air fare to someplace warm in January or February, if you’re stuck in Chicago and its -25 wind chill.
However, the TV ‘analysts’ have to pump up something. So… here is some food for thought on what’s on the calendar, and how it may give a ten second shake up of the indexes when each is posted.
Tomorrow, we have retail sales at 730 CST, at 855CST we have Consumer Sentiment and at 9AM, Business Inventories.

All three of these are rife with potential hand wringing […]

No matter how much caffeine the cable news hosts ingests, you can’t make a range bound market ‘exciting’. And we are range bound in these stock indexes. We have continued talk about dollar strengthening, but unless we break above 76.25 and re sume the rally, this could be nothing more than a temporary bounce. The currency issue is the issue of the day, so you have to watch it, no matter what you are trading.

I concentrate on the grains, the metals, crude oil and the stock indexes. Each one of those moves in relation to the dollar fluctuations. Therefore, you have to keep that […]

Ten days ago the dollar index was at the 74.25 level. Today and yesterday, we have been flirting with the 76.25 level. That rally has served to spur “profit taking” some may say, or just a meltdown in prices depending on your perspective.
In the metals, we had had such a run-up, we were over due for this correction.Gold has broken over 100 dollars from its highs as of today’s low at 1,118.10. Silver has lost over 2 cents since it’s foray towards 19.50, with today’s low at 17.13. Crude Oil has now approached the round number target at 70, with today’s low at […]

Whippy Wednesday is living up to its name. To begin with, we’ve had a pull back in the dollar index from the 76.25 area. Overnight, the grains moved whipped lower and then rallied back. Jan beans posted its low at 1035 1/4, which it has yet to test today in the day session. I have been talking about this 30 cent trading range, which we are exploring between 1034 and 1064. Jan beans will be most affected now by the dollar index and the weather forecast in South America. South America is predicting a record crop of over 64 MMT. If there’s any problem with […]

In March of 2009, the dollar index was trading at 88-89. That was the height of the equity melt-down. Since then, the dollar index moved inversely to the equity index prices.. Our recent low at the 74 and change level marked a 9 month, 15 handle move lower. It seems that the dollar has now caught a bid.

For all the reasons out there, the charts seem to be telling us that the dollar punishment is over for now.. So now the question is how high can she bounce. I would look for the simplest of answers. Half way back brings us to the 81 […]

There has been some continued pullback, or profit taking, depending on your mindset.
Its profit taking if you’ve been long indexes since July, or short them from their recent 9-month highs last week. Other wise, its just lower markets, on thin news during the holiday markets.
Apparently McDonald’s less than expected earnings reports is fresh bearish news telling us all how bad the US economy is behaving. Apparently people don’t go to breakfast when they are worried about being fired. What a surprise.

The most important factor today has been the 1 month high in the Dollar Index, driven by short covering from investors who […]