February 12, 2024 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
When I wrote my post “Was the Meta Platform 20% pop the market top? An important sign, yes,, but not for the reasons you think” I wasn’t thinking of a three-part series. But then came Part 2 “Why his isn’t 2000–I don’t see a replay of the Dot-Com Bear Market.”
And now Part 3: “OK, It’s not 2000, but that doesn’t mean there’s no risk in the market.” Part 3 in this series is going to segue right into the new Special Report that I’ll post on Wednesday with seven concrete steps I think you should implement now to protect your portfolio. But for today, I’m going to focus on a framework for thinking thinking about reward and risk in the current market. Think of the topic as “Why your portfolio needs protection now–even if we aren’t looking at a Bear Market.”
October 28, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
To catch you up in case your eyeballs have been focused elsewhere (and there’s certainly a lot of elsewhere to watch right now). First, the Russell 2000 broke below its July high. Then the NASDAQ Composite followed (down 12.2% from the July 31 high at the close on October 26.) Then the NASDAQ 100 joined in (down 10.9% as of the close on October 26.) And finally on Friday, October 27, the Big Daddy, the Standard & Poor’s 500 extended its slide from its July high to 10%. All thee indexes are now in correction. (Defined as a drop of 10% or more from the previous high.) The index and correction that worries me the most? The NASDAQ 100.
October 26, 2023 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility |
The NASDAQ Composite was still up 23.75% as of the close on October 25. But the index is now down 12.2% from its July 31 high as of the close on October 26. That’s correction territory.
September 26, 2023 | AAPL, ADBE, ALB, AMAT, EUM, GOLD, LAC, Morning Briefing, MSFT, NVDA, PILBF, RWM, SCCO, Short Term, Special Reports, UUP, Volatility |
So what do you do with your portfolio for the rest of 2023? And what’s your best strategy to be prepared for 2024? In Part 1 of this Special Report I laid out the 10 developments that I thought would drive the financial markets for the rest of 223 and into 2024. Today, in Part 2, I’m going to give you the first 2 of 10 moves to take–with as much detail and as many specifics as possible–that you should be making now to position your portfolio for the uncertainties of the last quarter of 2023.
September 24, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index (closing price) peaked on July 31 at 4588.96. The index is down 5.9% since then (as of the September 22 close.) That’s not correction territory (a drop of 10% ore more) but I’d say stocks can feel the hot breath of a correction on the back of their necks, The small-cap Russell 2000 Index has lost more than 11% from its July 31 closing high, roughly twice the decline in the S&P 500 Index over the same time. There are other signs of trouble in the stock market.
January 24, 2022 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
This morning the Standard & Poor’s traded more than 10% below its January 3 high. That puts this big market index in correction territory. As of 1 p.m. New York time the S&P 500 was down 2.99%. And that S&P 500 is one of the better stories this year. The NASDAQ Composite is off 17% from its November 19 high. The small cap Russell 2000 is down 20%, putting it on the edge of a bear market.
December 4, 2021 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
Expect the the debate to go on. Are we seeing a top for this extraordinary rally? Are stocks headed to their first correction since dinosaurs walked the earth? (Actually stocks had their last 10% correction in February 2020 but almost nobody remembers because it didn’t last very long and soon stocks were on their way to infinity and beyond.) And will this correction be led by technology stocks, the stars of the last rally? Or is the huge and very quick drop in technology stocks and the smaller but still significant fall in a wider index such as the Standard and Poor’s 500 merely a rotation from one sector into another? For the record, as of the close on Friday, December 3, the S&P 500 was down 3.47% from its November 24 high. The NASDAQ Composite, with its heavier weighting in technology, was down 6.05% from its November 11 high.
October 11, 2021 | Daily JAM |
To these technicians it looks like we’re in a downward sloping channel on the S&P in the short term.
September 24, 2020 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Stocks moved up modestly this morning (modest considering the damage down in the last few days) with the Standard & Poor's 500 up 0.99% at 1 p.m. New York time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ahead 0.94%, and the NASDAQ Composite gaining 1.16%. The move seems to...
September 23, 2020 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
I've argued that there are two giant bets that support stock prices at recent historic levels. One is the Vaccine Put, the belief in the delivery--and relatively soon too--of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine that will let economies around the world return to...
September 23, 2020 | ALB, Daily JAM, GOLD |
At 1 p.m. New York time the Standard & Poor's 500 was down 0.25%. At the close it was lower by 2.37% The pick up in selling was led by big tech stocks. Amazon (AMZN), for example was down 1.57% at 1 p.m. and 2.32% at the close. Microsoft was down 1.22% but...
September 20, 2020 | Daily JAM |
... all eyes on the 50-day moving average for tech stocks. Friday the NASDAQ 100 (^NDX in the Yahoo closed quote system) closed at 10936, well below its 50-day moving average at 11189. Apple (AAPL) was down another 3.17% at the close and finished at $106.84, well...
