David Moenning's Daily State of the Markets: 4/28 Apr 28, 2009 10:11AM

Coming Down With Something?

Most of the chatter in the market yesterday had to do with the swine flu. And while I hate to sound unsympathetic, so far at least, this is not an issue we need to be spending much time on from a stock market perspective. For example, there have been 149 reported deaths so far in Mexico from this ugly virus. But to put this into perspective, I heard a report yesterday that something like 36,000 people die each year from the flu, which, if my math is correct, is something on the order of 3,000 flu deaths each month. So, before you go and sell all of your stocks because of the economic mayhem the swine flu will cause, you might want to consider putting things into perspective.

Again, please don’t think me an uncaring, black-hearted sole. My point is that so far at least, this ...


David Moenning's Daily State of the Markets: 12/29 Dec 29, 2008 09:34AM

Looking Ahead Brings Questions

As the year draws to a close, money managers everywhere are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to hit the reset button and begin the 2009 edition of the game with a fresh slate. However, in looking ahead there seems to be far more questions than answers these days.

For example, probably the biggest question managers are wrestling with at the moment is if we’ve seen the worst from the credit debacle or if something like commercial real estate will become the next big problem needing to be solved. And while the market has been going sideways for more than two months, it is likely that investors will need to get a handle on the Madoff damage and believe that we won’t see any more big surprises in hedge-fund-land before any serious buying returns.

Speaking of blowups and questions, will there be any other industries that suddenly and ...


David Moenning's Daily State of the Markets: 10/27 Oct 27, 2008 09:57AM

More of the Same?

With the futures coming into Friday’s session lock-limit down, meaning they couldn’t fall any farther until the opening bell rang, and the foreign markets in a freefall, it looked like the crisis on Wall Street was going to get worse – a lot worse. The thinking, at least in the bull camp, has been that the panic low on 10/10 will likely hold up and therefore, the recent volatility is seen as simply part of the bottoming process. However, with stocks looking like they were going to lose 500 points or more at the open, the worry at the corner of Broad and Wall on Friday morning was that all bets might soon be off.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that the U.S.’s economic and financial woes appear to be going global. There was forced selling in Japan and weaker-than expected economic data in Europe ...


David Moenning's Daily State of the Markets: 9/15 Oct 15, 2008 09:46AM

Not So Fast!
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With stocks having blasted higher by more than 11% during Monday’s spectacular rebound and Japan’s Nikkei up more than +14% overnight, it wasn’t exactly surprising to see stock futures bounding higher in pre-market trading yesterday. And sure enough, traders didn’t disappoint as the Dow stepped lively to the tune of a 407 point gain in the first 5 minutes of the session.

But right at that moment, somebody must have grabbed a calculator and figured out that the Dow had blasted up 1,912 points or a whopping 24.2% since – wait for it – about lunchtime on Friday, because the rally stopped abruptly right then and there.

To be clear, there wasn’t any news to cause the celebration to suddenly and without warning, stop in its tracks. No, the simple fact of the matter ...


David Moenning's Daily State of the Markets: 8/11 Aug 11, 2008 09:49AM

Does It Count?

Here's a link to listen to an Audio Version of the report:

This morning, I’d like to follow up on last week’s discussion of technical analysis and the challenges one faces when trying to be a pure chart technician. On Friday, the Dow blasted higher by 303 points and appeared to break above the recent resistance levels, which definitely has to be considered a positive from any chart-watchers’ perspective.

The rally capped a positive yet volatile week as the S&P 500 wound up with the biggest weekly gain since April and the first back-to-back weekly gains in nearly four months. Stocks advanced on the back of another drop in oil, a strong rally in the dollar, and the thinking that we’ve seen the worst in both the credit crisis and the inflation scare.

The session didn’t exactly start off on a stellar note as we got more ...