Investing Adventures

Friday, December 14, 2007

CPI, Stocks, and You

Filed under: Market Pulse — Jorge @ 7:16 am

What is the CPI?  The CPI, Consumer Price Index, is a broadly used gauge of inflation.  From what I gather, the CPI includes everything including food, energy, and other high volatility prices.  The Core Index is a much narrower gauge of inflation stripping out high volatility commodities such as energy.

So how does all of that relate to us today?  Here’s the situation the Fed’s in.  On one hand, the U.S. is in a credit and housing crisis.  Injecting liquidity into the market may help ease the situation.  The Fed can increase liquidity through a number of avenues but the most widely liked choice is through reductions in interest rate.   But what happens when interest rates are cut?

Every time interest rates are cut, the fear of inflation increases.  But if the fears of inflation increase, the Fed, at their bi-monthly FOMC meetings, will be hard pressed to cut interest rates.  So on one hand you have investors clamoring for interest rate cuts to ease the credit crisis, but on the other hand the lower interest rates go, the higher inflation fears become.

This morning, the CPI and Core Index were released showing a larger rise in inflation across the board.  Futures are down as a result.  Why?  There is now data to support Bernanke’s decision to lower interest rates in a stepwise fashion while keeping a “balanced” concern on inflation and the credit crisis.  If this morning’s data isn’t revised (it appears quite a bit of data is revised weeks after their initial release), does this mean Bernanke’s correct and that he really does know something?  If inflation continues to creep upward, does that halt or even raise concerns of an interest rate hike?  Oh, the predicament!

So now I’m fairly confused and concerned.  On one hand, you have a credit and housing crisis.  I would argue the crisis is more the result of greedy investors with some legitimate homeowners caught in the crossfire, but that’s for another discussion.  On the other hand, inflation’s creeping upward.  As a relatively poor college student, it’s becoming more and more difficult justifying $4.99 for a gallon of milk.  But if something isn’t done about the credit and housing crisis, the U.S. may enter a period of stagflation, which I could only assume may be worse than a recession or a period of inflation.  Anyone else just as confused or concerned as I am?

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I SPY an Intraday Trend…

Filed under: Index and ETFs, Technical Analysis — Jorge @ 7:56 pm

I’m currently reading Murphy’s textbook on Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets. If I were a day trader, I would really enjoy the SPY setup we had today. Although I’m still learning, it looks as if the SPY today showed signs of textbook H&S trend reversals. If only I were a day trader… well maybe not. I see how hard Bubs has it. I couldn’t stomach that … yet. Tomorrow’s another day!

spy-december-12-2007.png

Housekeeping

Filed under: Miscellaneous — Jorge @ 6:56 am

With some of the end of the semester deadlines out of the way, I can refocus my attention on the markets and the blog. I have some housekeeping issues to take care of so here we go:

  • Thanks to The Dividend Guy for Building Wealth with Dividend Stocks. TDG’s recently posted an article on what the plan of attack would be if you were just starting out in the markets. It’s a good read so check it out. I haven’t had much time to read the book but I’ll be traveling back home for a few days toward the end of the month giving me some much needed downtime to catch up on things. Thanks again for the contest and good luck surviving the end of the year. It’s been rough!
  • Thanks to Blain on Stock Trading to Go for his monthly Top Commentator program. He’s currently taking ideas for a new homepage so if you have any suggestion, drop by and give him a shout. You may win a free site-wide text link for a month and more!
  • spced2grnblk.jpgNeat design eh? Anthony from 125design was giving away free 125×125 images for primary use with Entrecard as a starting point for his new venture. His business appears to be booming so if you need a new 125×125 image or need one redesigned, take a quick peek at his portfolio on his site and place an order. Mention my website, investingadventures[dot]com, and receive 20% off your purchase price. You can also find his advertisement on the sidebar as well. Make sure you fix your links on your main site Anthony! Good luck to him and thanks again for the design. It’s been a hit so far!
  • If you haven’t visited Option Addict [dot] net, I encourage you to do so. Not only is the blog a great hit, but the support of the readers makes it a unique and wonderful learning experience.
  • If you haven’t taken part in the no-follow link train, I suggest you do!  Not only is it fun, but I’m hosting it as well!  Thanks to Prija for the opportunity to host it.  You have until the end of the year to enter.  What are you waiting for?

I think that about covers everything for now. Futures look up this morning. How long that’ll last is unknown. Be careful out there. It looks like volatility’s back.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

FOMC December 11, 2007 Meeting

Filed under: Equities, FOMC, Index and ETFs, Market Pulse — Jorge @ 12:51 pm

The FOMC decided on Tuesday to cut both the Federal Funds Rate and the Discount Rate by a quarter point. The key in the decision was not the rate cuts but the statement still holding inflation as a key element to their decision. As a result, you saw the bottom from the markets come out, especially in the XLF (the Select Financial Sector Fund). Here are a couple of graphs showing you what happened intra-day. Note how the S&P has completely blown through support.

S&P After FOMC 12/11 Meeting

XLF After FOMC 12/11 Meeting

I may pick up on some SPY puts in the near term. I don’t expect the market to recover for at least a couple of days while they digest the FOMC statements. We may be retesting the lows we saw in August and November if the statement isn’t well received. Be careful. We may have a bear market on our hands.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Technical Analysis Continued: EMC Corp

Filed under: Equities, Technical Analysis — Jorge @ 5:31 pm

In our previous analysis, the general consensus from myself and readers is that EMC, upon breaking the neckline of the inverted H&S, may have some bullish tendencies. Now, let’s couple the initial chart reading with some indicators I’ve begun to use thanks to the instructors at Think or Swim. (Shameless plug, but TOS is by far the best broker I’ve used to date!)

Let’s go ahead and add three indicators to our EMC chart, the MACD, the Slow Stochastic, and the Money Flow Index.

EMC with indicators

Now, you (and I both!) should have a good understanding of how the MACD, SS, and the MF work. Investopedia has great articles on all three so we’ll go ahead and forgo a long explanation of the three. I’ll come back to that at a later date.

First, the MACD indicator. As you can see (and if I’m reading this correctly), the MACD (the solid black line) has crossed over the 9 day EMA, or trigger line (the red dashed line). When the MACD crosses the trigger in a positive way (i.e. the MACD doing the crossover instead of the trigger), this may signal a bullish trade. One indicator, at least in my opinion, probably does not give the whole story so let’s move on the next indicator, the Slow Stochastic.

The Slow Stochastic is made up of two lines, the %K and %D line. To keep things short, when the %K line crosses the %D line in an upward trend, that may signal a buy while crossing on a downward trend can signal a sell. What’s neat about the slow stochastic from the TOS classes is that if the %K line begins to diverge from the %D line, a bullish trend becomes more and more likely since stock prices are closing closer to their intra-day highs. With EMC, the %K line appears to be diverging from the %D line in an upward trend.

The last signal I was taught is the Money Flow Index. The money flow is just that. How much money are large institutions pouring/withdrawing from a specific stock. In this case, it appears that money is slowly flowing back into EMC after the harsh selloff a month or so go. Don’t fight the trend.

From the chart analysis to the different indicators, I see EMC going upward over the next month to two months. Within the next couple of months, from charting, I’d give EMC a price target of about $22.50 which is the difference between the low and the neckline added to the neckline / resistance level. If the trend is confirmed, it may be worth buying options about 3 months out in case you’re interested in jumping in just to give yourself enough time. EMC also has earnings in early January which may give EMC’s stock another pop. Good luck!

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