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Time to Cultivate Our Gardens Another month, another record. On the second day of August, the Dow Jones Industrials closed at 22,026, after earlier this year going through 20,000 and then 21,000. This is the thirtieth time this year that the Dow has made a record close. Now, it’s...

Too Much Of A Good Thing? Mae West said, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 21,796 on July 27. 2017, after setting 46 new record closing highs since the 2016 presidential election. That pits the Dow up 10% since the beginning of...

Where The Money Is While many investors were fretting that a correction is coming, the tech-centered Nasdaq average reeled off ten straight up days, rising 5% in that span. Certainly, there will be market corrections from time to time, as there always have been, but the market...

The Rails Just Confirmed The Industrials Current news events provide several reasons to support a stock market plunge. Each day brings new developments in the ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia. The prospects of rising interest rates and their...

Nervousness Is Normal, Euphoria Is Not Stocks began to weaken in June with prices eroding among the technological stocks that had led the market’s advances this year. This seemed to spread from investor fears that they would watch their gains disappear. Too much watching of stock...

Quarter Ends with a Rumble As the second quarter ends, the stock market continues to rumble. Recently leading technology stocks are encountering selling even as bank stocks are moving up. Such rotational strengths are common and selling among the more glamorous leaders seems to...

It Just Keeps Rolling This old bull market just keeps rolling along. The current bull run celebrated its eighth birthday in March and is now the second longest since WWII. A bull market is conventionally defined as a rise uninterrupted by a 20% decline, which announces a bear...

Eyes On The Targets Investors who did not “sell in May and go away” are fortunate they disregarded that ancient Wall Street cliché. After a 1.2% gain on the S&P 500 in May, the S&P is up another 1% in the first week of June, In contrast to the continuing political clamor...

Stay On Target Stocks finished May with a gain for the month of 1.2% on the S&P 500, bringing its progress this year to 10%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was ahead slightly, holding above 21,000. The Nasdaq, which includes more technology stocks, was ahead 2.5%. This was...

Still Cleared For Takeoff With 85% of the 500 companies in the S&P 500 having reported earnings for their March quarter, the blended growth rate is a solid 13.5%. That’s the highest since the third quarter of 2011 and a strong sign that the stock market’s current uptrend need...

Seventh-Inning Stretch Stocks continue their upward trend with the S&P 500 Index ahead seven percent so far in 2017. As good bull markets should, the market has climbed a skeptical “wall of worry.” That’s encouraging, as history has repeatedly shown that markets usually...

Don’t Sell In May; Don’t Go Away Tax cut proposals took over the headlines this week. Simply putting them on the agenda sparked back-to-back market rallies that pushed the market averages ahead for April. It seems doubtful that major changes in our tax laws can take place before...

Paradoxes Prevail Since November, politics has dominated the financial news. The new Administration continues irregular progress with its campaign promises, faltering with reworking broad medical coverage. This led to reduced expectations that the tax cuts so eagerly awaited by...

Bad News Gets Higher Ratings “Don’t sell on strike news” is one of Wall Street’s oldest adages. This appeared in the 1880’s, reflecting a period when the newspapers put labor disputes in bold headlines. The slogan persisted until about fifty years ago as strikes against...

Market Tuning Beats Market Timing The financial media pump up fear and greed, often agitating investors to trade on emotions. This week, Tesla (TSLA-$297) hit a hot streak on news suggesting eventual profits. This sparked the rookies into thinking that it was time to get into the...