Market Insights
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Breakout or Breakdown? Stock Movement Grinds to a Halt as Investors Wait and See
Stocks have stopped moving as investors wait for more news on corporate earnings and interest rates. The S&P 500 slid 0.1 percent between Friday, April 14, and Friday, April 21. If that percentage change sounds small, consider that the index fluctuated less than...
How Transports Are Moving in Very Different Directions
How schizophrenic is the transportation sector? Look no further than yesterday's headlines. On one hand, analysts at JPMorgan raised price targets on major railroads like CSX (CSX), Union Pacific (UNP) and Norfolk Southern (NSC). All three inched lower along with the...
Guess Who Out-traded Apple and Facebook Yesterday: Options Recap
Normally big tech companies dominate activity in the options market. But not yesterday. The busiest underliers, after all, are usually companies like Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), Micron Technology (MU) and Nvidia (NVDA). But on Wednesday all of those were outdone by a...
An Unexpected Positive in Housing
There was a rare green shoot in housing today. Mortgage applications for buying a home rose 7 percent last week (seasonally adjusted), according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. It was the biggest gain since an increase of 10 percent in mid-April. Another report...
Here Come Earnings
It's hard to deny sentiment is building for a strong earnings season. Depending on who you ask, profits are projected to rise more than 20 percent. While the estimates vary, direction is positive because all the research shows consensus figures climbing in recent...
Don’s Notebook July 11, 2018
The June Producer Price Index (PPI) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was announced at 8:30am ET. Services and metals are factors in June's producer price report where all three headline indexes -- overall, less food & energy, less food & energy &...
Retail & Railroads: Options Recap
Here's a breakdown of some big options spreads from Tuesday. Both reflected continued optimism about the economy. First, a put ratio spread in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT): A block of 50,000 27-July 48 puts was bought for $0.36. Some 100,000 27-July 47 puts were...
Technology & Communication
Big Banks and Netflix Surprise to the Upside: Earnings This Week
Earnings season started on a strong foot as major banks reported surprising growth in their core businesses. JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Morgan Stanley (MS), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and PNC Financial (PNC) all beat estimates in the last...