The Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLF) offers a diversified way to invest in the banking sector. The fund’s top 10 holdings include Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFX) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), which make up more than… Read More

The stock market is a fickle beast. Driven by perception rather than reality, it can launch into a multi-day rally at the smallest bullish rumor, or… Read More

The stock market is a fickle beast. Driven by perception rather than reality, it can launch into a multi-day rally at the smallest bullish rumor, or plunge lower whenever a tiny bit of economic uncertainty arises.  Everyone has a different opinion of what the future holds for the stock market. But lately, the bearish specialists have been presenting a compelling case of why a market downturn is… Read More

The stock market is a fickle beast. Driven by perception rather than reality, it can launch into a multi-day rally at the smallest bullish rumor, or plunge lower whenever a tiny bit of economic uncertainty arises.  Everyone has a different opinion of what the future holds for the stock market. But lately, the bearish specialists have been presenting a compelling case of why a market downturn is way overdue.#-ad_banner-# Because the market acts as an anticipatory mechanism, all the pending good news and potential government stimulus have already been priced into the market, according to these bears. In other words, the market has already moved higher on the anticipation of all possible bullish news.  Another strong point they make is that many companies have only been able to achieve improved earnings by cutting costs, not revenue. This type of creative accounting only offers a… Read More

Short-term trading can be profitable, but can also require a great deal of time to find trades and then execute them in fast-moving markets. Because of those challenges, I also look at long-term trading opportunities, hoping to find positions that can be held for six months or more. To do… Read More

The DeMark Sequential is a popular indicator among market professionals. It is designed to pinpoint potential tops and bottoms in any market. It is available by subscription to large investors using expensive Bloomberg terminals and other professional trading tools. According to… Read More

The markets still are largely digesting the big post-election sell-off, but it’s not so much the reelection of President Barack Obama that’s got everyone on Wall Street nervous. Rather, the biggest source of tensions fraying the nerves of traders is the potentially disastrous… Read More

Jim Rogers, legendary commodities investor and co-founder of the Quantum Fund along with George Soros (a legend in his own right), has been looking at the pace of money printing in the developed world. And he doesn’t like what he sees. In fact, the legendary investor was recently quoted as… Read More

The winners of the past six months are likely to be among the best performers in the next six months, according to research published in a number of academic studies. And relative strength (RS) can be used to find the biggest winners… Read More

Cash has been piling up on corporate balance sheets since before the financial crisis and S&P 500 companies now hold combined liquid assets of nearly $1 trillion. So in a sluggish economy like this… Read More

There’s nothing like a visit to a foreign country to give you a sense of how well, or how poorly, that country is doing economically. Speaking with the “man on the street,” reading the local newspapers, and getting a feel for how citizens perceive their economic situation usually is much… Read More