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Seems like there's an awful lot of doom'n'gloom out there: (excerpt from)   More Volatility Sends Market Down for a 3rd WeekThe stock market was hit hard on Friday, capping a third week of declines as investors reacted to a steep drop in oil prices and a jump in the value of the dollar. Utilities, major exporters and companies that make basic materials like steel had the biggest declines. The sell-off came at the end of a volatile week, and it sets the stage for a Federal Reserve policy meeting next week. Investors will be watching closely for clues about...

American consumers are still enjoying relatively cheap gasoline as the summer driving season gets closer. AAA reports the national average at $2.44 this week, still below the 50-year inflation-adjusted average of $2.50 per gallon. If youÂ’d like cheaper gas, donÂ’t blame the oil and gas industry. ItÂ’s been the United Steelworkers and their strike against Royal Dutch Shell and 11 refineries that ticked gas back up more than anything, although it appears that a settlement has been accepted. Refiners are in their bi-annual season of throttling back production to perform maintenance and retool for the summer blends. So it begs...

President Barack Obama is nominating a major fundraiser for his presidential campaign to be the next U.S. ambassador to Sweden. The White House says Azita Raji is Obama’s pick for the job. She’s a former investment banker who served as national vice-chair of finance for Obama’s 2012 campaign. She helped raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign as a “bundler” in 2012. …

excerpt from: Stock Indexes Take Hard Hits; Market Uptrend Under PressureStocks ratcheted lower Friday in fast trade, with the indexes suffering their biggest percentage losses since late January. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 skidded 1.1% and 1.4%, respectively. [snip] What they're saying is stocks plunged in higher volume and the S&P 500 smacked down into the danger warning ten-week moving average.  It's supposed to be a bad sign, a sell signal, a harbinger bad moon rising.  Only thing is that the last two times this kind of signal popped up-- ←  they ended up turning into fabulous buying opportunities. However...

Apple Inc. will join the Dow Jones Industrial Average on March 18, replacing AT&T Inc., in the first reshuffling since September 2013. Apple holds a market capitalization of about US$736 billion, making it the largest publicly traded company in the world. AT&T, by contrast, has a market value of US$176.5 billion. Shares of Apple were higher in early trading, gaining 1.3% to US$128.02, while AT&T’s shares fell 1.3% to US$33.55. The changes will push the number of technology-related companies in the 30-member gauge to six and boost their influence even more as the tech giant joins Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp.,...

Under the false pretense of calling for new and tougher so-called fiduciary standards for financial brokers, advisers and retirement plan representatives, the White House once again horned in on Wall Street’s compensation formulas. However, what the president surely knows is that a vast majority of retirement plans — IRAs and 401(k)s — are in simple fee-based products like mutual funds. The commission-based accounts are for those who prefer to direct their brokers in certain purchases inside some of their retirement products. The key to the White House’s interference is in its nuanced language. Currently, a broker may make a recommendation...

[excerpt from Stock-market crash of 2016: The countdown begins]Dow will drop 50% as market replays 2008, 2000 and 1929.  That will translate into the DJIA crashing from today’s 18,117 down 50% to about 9,000. Ouch, the Dow crashing all the way below 10,000. Unimaginable. Bulls will hate it. No wonder our brains tune out, turn off. Instead, we prefer the happy talk that will just keep coming out of Wall Street and Washington till the 2016 collapse. We’ll just keep denying reality ... till it’s too late, and we suffer another $10 trillion loss is on the books. Deja...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/how-an-undocumented-immigrant-from-mexico-became-a-star-at-goldman-sachs

[excerpt from Yahoo Finance: What to watch next week: TGT, HD, M, HPQ, GDP and Greece] Next week will be a busy week on Wall Street with a raft of big earnings reports including Target (TGT), Macy’s (M), Home Depot (HD) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to name just a few. Investors will also have a lot of economic data and geopolitics to digest this coming week and in the weeks that follow. The Commerce Department will release the latest reading on third quarter Gross Domestic Product. Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman thinks investors will be watching that report closely, as well...

Interesting how the really bad weather NOW makes the stock market go up instead of down? Seems that some years ago, I noticed the indexes would fall after a bad storm and the media would immediately report that the economy was affected by the weather. Also, some military action in some other part of the world affected stocks here. I mean, it almost to the point of where if Obama farts, the market goes up (or down). Our sources of information have all been co-opted by the Devil. The general public has no clue to what degree the media has...

The Federal Reserve is pushing back against mounting criticism of the central bank, even as those pushing for reforms ratchet up their attacks. Fed officials have in recent weeks met in private with staffers from both parties, focusing primarily on the Senate, according to sources familiar with the meetings. Meanwhile, Chairwoman Janet Yellen and other Fed officials have publicly sounded off against a proposal championed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-K.Y.) that would give Congress more sway over the bank. The uptick in outreach from the independent agency signals an effort to quell calls for significant changes at the Fed and...

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...