Hey Market Pilot,I have been discussing recently how the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ have been trending up relentlessly, but underneath the surface the breadth was poor and many stocks were declining. The indexes I have been using to help demonstrate that poor breadth have been the Russell 2000 and the IBD 50 (FFTY) since they were basically going sideways for the last six months. Now that those two indexes are starting to move up and provide energy for the small caps, along with the market more broadly, let’s look … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, Last week was the Jackson Hole symposium where we heard another speech from Jerome Powell who is the 16th chair of the Federal Reserve. It was pretty much assumed that he wasn’t going to rock the boat or change course, but would the market be happy with the status quo?  The market pulled back slightly on Thursday going into Friday’s speech. While that might have been taken as people hesitating or pulling bids before the news, in the Moxie Indicator™ world I had been guiding the members … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, Over the past several months, part of the talk about the market has been the poor market breadth (number of stocks participating in a move) despite the record high in the indexes. One theory I had floated across was that if the indexes stayed up, and breadth cycled down, what would happen if all those poorly performing stocks making up the poor breadth spent enough time trending down, that these tickers eventually became good deals and started to strengthen? This is just an idea of mine on … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, The market broke support last week and we faced a few stiff days of selling. In my last newsletter I cautioned readers, saying this market doesn’t like to stay down. So once the S&P 500 (SPY) found the daily 50 simple moving average (SMA), it bounced. This was my initial target in my discussions once a pullback was likely since the SPY has a history of going to the daily 50 and then resuming its uptrend. Everyone keeps wondering, when will things change and we get a … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, After a few weeks of lackluster activity and moves to the long side stalling, we are finally getting some action this week (even if it’s to the downside). I took the Moxie IndicatorTM members into cash last Friday since the longs I was in just kept melting down slowly and not holding the moving averages as they should have been. There were a few other clues for me as well. One of them was the Short-Term Futures exchange-traded fund (UVXY) starting to move up and hold support. … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, Over the weekend I filmed my weekly video review for my Moxie IndicatorTM members. In that video I explained to them how the landscape of the market right now is looking a little dicey. I am seeing new highs, breakouts, and earnings pops get sold into. Uptrends seem to be hitting brick walls and structure just keeps fading. The indexes themselves appear to be masking the deterioration underneath and so it has been difficult to discern what is really going on. One metric I like to use … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, All eyes have been on the inflation numbers, both consumer (CPI) and producer (PPI). This is because inflation is an old foe that America has had to fight. If left unchecked, it can get out of hand. We are familiar with the stories in the past from other countries where people were moving money around in wheelbarrows just to purchase a loaf of bread. This is the fear that is ingrained in our memories when we worry about inflation and look for even the slightest hint of … Read more

Hey Market Pilots, With the status of the economy at play every time an economic report comes out, sectors related to its performance have been moving around in all directions. If a report says the economy is weak for example, then value stock and gold rise. If the economy is strong, then growth stocks rise and gold goes down. But what if a strong economy throws in a few other variables like inflation and a strong dollar? In this case, with a recent jobs report, we say that inflation outpaced … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, The markets have been on fire for months, but that isn’t necessarily the case beneath the surface. Despite the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq trucking along and making new all-time highs, there is a large contingent of tickers not doing well. One thought is that perhaps these stocks are cycling down into better buy points since they had moved up so strongly in 2020. The question is ─ when are those stocks going to come back alive? I think it is going to be based on the … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, Earnings season is in full swing, and it has been a wild one. We have seen all sorts of reactions out there with very polar results like Amazon (AMZN) down hard but Atlassian Corporation (TEAM) up huge. It’s tough to know exactly which way these binary events will go, so I prefer to stay away until the dust settles. Traders ask me how close to earnings am I willing to hold a stock, and then how soon after am I willing to get back in? If the … Read more