Free Republic

This is an update to article written a few years ago. Everybody knows that retail and institutional investors are usually late to a trade. When they decide to buy, the wise guys are distributing or selling their shares to them and locking in their gains. When they sell, the wise guys are accumulating or buying their shares from them, again locking in their gains. How do the wise guys pull it off? The answer lies in the combination of reflexive human behavior and the use of high frequency, algorithmic (HFA) trading. With the advance of computer trading on a massive...

[excerpt from Yahoo Finance]   NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks are poised for more upward momentum even as uncertainty over oil prices and Greek debt negotiations keeps the market on tenterhooks, analysts say.Strong fourth-quarter U.S. company earnings and signs of an overall improving economy, alongside what appears to be the start of a bottoming in crude oil prices, have given equities support.After starting 2015 with its sharpest monthly drop in a year and a spike in volatility, the benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) hit an intraday record on Friday while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) reached its highest point...

[excerpt from NASDAQ Weekly Market Wrap: February 6, 2015 ] The fifth full trading week of 2015 comes to a close with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ composite all lower in afternoon trading on Friday. Most actively traded stocks include Bank of America (BAC) up 3.5%, Twitter (TWTR) higher by 15.9%, Frontier Communications (FTR) up 3%, and Sirius XM Holdings up 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite are all significantly higher in the last five days of trading. Crude oil futures are higher this week, trading at $51.83 per barrel on...

On the left is the excerpt --from the expert linked in Real Clear Markets:  A Darkening Market Sky - Anthony Mirhaydari, The Fiscal Times     By Anthony Mirhaydari, The Fiscal Times January 30, 2015 With the first month of the new year coming to a close, it's clear that 2015 is shaping up to be quite different from the smooth, easy climb investors enjoyed in 2013 and 2014.As recently as late December, the market optimism seemed indefatigable as stocks powered to new record highs on hopes for new stimulus from the European Central Bank, solid U.S. economic data and a strengthening tailwind to consumer spending...

Russian spies operating a cell in New York were trying to find ways to cause an economic meltdown, according to court documents. The three men allegedly wanted to ‘destabilise’ high frequency trading systems, which were blamed for the Wall St ‘Flash Crash’ of 2010. snip The FBI began investigating the men in 2010 after ten Russian spies living in the US were arrested, including red-haired femme fatale Anna Chapman. Last night the exposure of the latest spy ring threatened to turn into a diplomatic row as Russia said there was no evidence against the trio. Prosecutors in New York named...

Considering the top headlines were about soft footballs this has to have been an easy no-brainer week for investments.  Maybe; here's what he experts are telling us:                     [excerpt from Investors Business Daily At Davos, Hypocrites Tell Rest Of Us To Lower Expectations]Former Vice President Al Gore listens to singer Pharrell Williams... [snip]...talking, of course, about the annual confab at Davos, Switzerland, ...[snip] "The purpose," said former vice president and climate-change entrepreneur Al Gore, standing with hip-hop star Pharrell Williams, "is to have a billion voices with one message, to demand climate action now." OK, so how about you flying commercial,...

The United States is gradually, but unrelentingly, destroying part of itself. The facts to support this are well-documented, told in many ways from past to present. The most egregious example of Americide is our country's treatment of African-Americans. Almost everyone agrees about the evils of slavery, once dismissed simply as a Peculiar Institution. But a debate goes on about reparations, with passionate arguments on both sides, ranging from a demand for a Reparations Superfund for jobs and education, to a claim that blacks actually benefited from slavery because of the years of 'reparations' received through poverty programs. Reparations opponents insist...

There’s blood on the Street. In a wild swing of the ax that has shocked many pundits, Wall Street’s biggest banks have slashed nearly 50,000 jobs, and bonuses and expense money are being cut as profit opportunities dry up. And there’s no easy way out, analysts say, because the Fed’s quantitative easing that once rescued the financial system with trillions of cheap dollars is — at least for now — history. But while some analysts were unnerved by the carnage announced by banks last week during their earnings calls, the warning signs were there before — from lower trading and...

                      The main reason we try to predict markets is so afterward we can gloat saying we knew it all along.  Easy-peasy -- all we do is predict doom'n'gloom and eventually asset prices will sag.  Sure, most of the time prices go up, things grow and wealth is created, but the only time folks cry WHY!!?? is during the rough times. Then again, the other reason we figure out expected market trends is so we can make money.  That's not that hard either because over time most investments do better than say, cramming...

          Average U.S.      Household Wealth             Real Estate $186,702     Durables $44,374     Deposits $81,497     Stocks/Business $422,126     Bonds $27,139     Misc. $7,598       ____________     Total Assets $769,435             Debts -$113,397       _____________     Net Worth $656,039           Something that snuck by me (and most people) last month was the Fed's quarterly Flow of Funds Report --their bigass number-dump that says where all America's money has...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Selling pressure on Wall Street intensified on Tuesday, sending the S&P 500 below the 2,000 level, as slumping oil prices and weaker-than-expected economic reports sent investors running for cover. Tuesday’s selling action comes on the heels of a brutal sell-off on Monday, which saw the closely watched Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 331 points. Investors were scouring for safe industries such as utilities as well as U.S. Treasurys, pushing yields to the lowest levels since the Oct.15 mini-flash crash.

Waging class warfare can get pretty tiresome for some Democrats… Which kinda explains why they have decided to make companies wage it on themselves. As part of the regulation requirements in Dodd-Frank, publicly traded companies will soon have to spend millions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of man-hours, to officially report how rich their CEO is compared to rank and file employees. According to the Washington Free Beacon:The provision is backed by labor unions like the AFL-CIO, which seeks to “shame companies into lowering CEO pay.” The price tag of the regulation is expected to be “substantial,” costing more than...

It's reasonable to recoil when DC gasbags compare Elizabeth Warren to Ted Cruz. But here's its less-obvious upside. In one of the more memorable Senate speeches in recent memory, Senator Elizabeth Warren threw down the gauntlet to Wall Street in words that you don’t often hear in that august body: she named names. Responding Citigroup’s complaints about financial reform, “let me say this to anyone who is listening at Citi[group]. I agree with you Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. It should have broken you into pieces!” That’s unusual. The millionaires club also known as the Senate is an unlikely place to hear...

A good January for stocks promises big gains for the year --or so goes the story goes (from Down January for stocks is bad omen for 2014 - USA Today) "How stocks fare in January often sets the tone for the full year".   A lot of work's been done on this, and TradingSim reports that   When the S&P500 has a net positive gain in the first five trading days of the year, there is about an 86% chance that the stock market will rise for the year, it has worked in 31 out of the last 36 years (as of...

In 2014, Wall Street's stock market forecasts proved too conservative. The S&P 500 closed the year at 2,058, above the year-end forecast of all but one strategist — FundStrat's Tom Lee. For 2015, Wall Street sees stocks gaining some ground, but few strategists are calling for the fourth straight year of double-digit gains from stocks. The average year-end target on the S&P 500 is 2,225 on earnings of $125.35, with the median forecast for the S&P 500 to rise to 2,213 on earnings of $126. Tom Lee is a big bull again, as is Oppenheimer's John Stoltzfus and RBC's Jonathan...

Not only does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce think it is the only reason the GOP won in November, it is now threatening Republicans with opposition next go round if they don’t lay down and give the Chamber precisely what it wants, including on immigration, increased spending on transportation, and economic deals that sweeten the pot for big business.Naturally, the Wall Street Journal is there to carry the Chamber’s water: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce flexed its muscle in the midterm election, winning 14 of 15 Republican primaries in which it was involved and helping the GOP recapture the Senate. Now it wants...

            [click to enlarge]         Weird, all our doom'n'gloomers have disappeared!  Usually the pundits are warning about the big upcoming market crash but look at what the latest "expert" predictions are for 2015 stock market returns: Outlook 2015: Year Ahead Reports & Analysis Our 2015 year-end target for the S&P 500 is 2200, putting returns on a more-normal pace of 6%.Barron's Cover Outlook 2015: Stick With the Bull Wall Street’s top strategists expect the S&P 500 to rally 10% Markets  Wall Street bull: Market will rise another 14% in 2015 Add to this the fact that we're still overdue for our longer term...

Stocks are pushing further into record territory as the Dow Jones industrial average tops 18,000 points for the first time. Traders have been encouraged by signs of strength in the U.S. economy and reassurances that the Federal Reserve won't interest rates soon. There was more encouraging news early Tuesday as the U.S. government reported that the economy powered ahead at a 5 percent annual rate in the third quarter. That was the fastest pace in more than a decade. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 43 points, or 0.2 percent, to 18,003 as of 9:35 a.m. Easter. The Standard &...

Liberals powerless to stop the Clinton-Wall Street gravy train.Despite her best efforts and most passionate gesticulations, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) failed to shut down the government on Thursday, thus proving her political clout is vastly inferior to that of GOP colleague Ted Cruz. Warren had urged House Democrats to block a controversial spending package, which included a provision to roll back a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill known as the “swaps pushout” rule. Warren, for the record, does not like Wall Street. “It is time for all of us to stand up and fight,” she said on...

2014 Recap --Looking Back; Investment & Finance Thread - Dec. 14 [click for link to list] Merry Christmas!   We get to open some goodies a few days early here, first with the list of this past year's thread links (left) for a nostalgic walk down Memory Lane while we go over this past market strategies.  Then we can number-plot check out how general markets fared.   Stocks:  Looking over the past year (as of Dec. 19) we're seeing the S&P 500 up 12.0% and the NASDAQ up 14.1% --above average!  OK we've done better but I personally can live w/...