Crash Market Stocks - Financial Tips On Making Money In The Stock Market

Trading was mixed for most of Tuesday as the Dow ended slightly down and the S&P ended slightly up. Many were anxiously awaiting results from the latest Fed meeting, wondering if and any changes were going to be made to interest rates and policy. Like we expected, no changes were announced and as a result, investors felt a bit happier about buying going into the close.

Markets experienced mixed trading throughout the day, which closed with all of them being moderately up, however Apple remained strong throughout the entire day. This because of the live presentation Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) gave to the world, which demonstrates their newest product, the iPad. With this post, I am posting the video of Jobs himself demonstrating the strengths of the product. He claims it to be "the best web browsing experience you've ever had."

One extremely large standout about the iPad, is their new "A4 processor chip." I have been really impressed with the speed my iPhone 3GS runs, however, the new A4 chip is suppose to blow the 3GS away. The 3GS is claimed to have a 600 MHz chip, where the new A4 chip runs at 1.0 GHz. That's almost twice the speed. As always, I am skeptical at just how much this new Apple product can do for me, but it seems I am blown away with every new one. The new product is looking to retail between $500-$800, depending on hard drive space.

I think what made Apple investors happy was not only the release of the new media device, but that Steve Jobs was the face of it. During the past couple of years, there has been a lot of question regarding the health of Steve Jobs and his ability to continue with his responsibilities. He was even forced to take a brief leave of absence during treatments, which caused the stock to trade down over 10% in one day. However, today, he looked healthier than ever. You could feel his excitement in the new product and his anticipation to release it to the world. That was a good move for Apple to get him out there.

The FOMC meeting helped bolster the rest of the markets as it was announced that there is no immediate plan to raise interest rates. The fact that the Fed continues to leave interest rates so low, suggests their concern for the state of the economy if borrowing rates were at normal levels. I mean, when you consider how frozen lending markets are currently, with a 0% borrowing rate, it is scary to think what the activity would be at normal levels. As a result, they are opening up the doors for inflation more and more as money remains extremely cheap.

The dollar has been on a real strong push since the end of the year. I have been saying that a run in the dollar is due, which still points that deflation is still present. If it were not for massive government stimulus and o% rates, it would be manifested much more at this point. Gold and oil should continue to move in the opposite direction as the dollar, at least until signs of inflation start hitting hard. However, I do not see that happening anytime this year.

Commodities continue to fall at this point, which for me, makes the best option to short at this point. Longing the dollar is the only long play that makes good sense to me at this point. I do believe as we head deeper into the first quarter, financials will be back on the chopping block, as will real estate REITS and home builders. Happy Trading

Well, what started out looking to be another mild, green trading day (the recent trend), the market faced some serious selling pressure going into close, which brought the Dow down 82 points Wednesday. More importantly, in my opinion, was the rather significant increase in volume compared to recent days past, which has been a big concern for me as of late.

Markets cheered The Fed's decision to keep rates at essentially 0% for an extended period of time as the Dow closed up another 120 points. It is very evident that indeed we are and have been in the midst of a vicious bear market rally, one of which I wished I could have capitalized on more. However, markets have performed in a very unorthodox manner and I fear that many have been fooled into thinking that we have seen the last of a declining stock market. Unfortunately, market crashes usually take investors by surprise, so to see such mass positive sentiment is not that surprising to me.

In addition to The Fed keeping the rate the same, they also announced their plan to slow down the purchase of US Treasuries. Really?! Who is going to buy the trillions that are left to sell? You know China isn't. Down the road, they may consider slowing that process, however, I don't see how they can begin that anytime soon, considering the amount of debt that we are in and the state of the global economy.

Despite the craziness of the market, Market Trend has done a great job of technically tracking buy and sell points in recent trading. I am posting a link of their most recent video showing their flawless technical trades they have called the past 24 months. Click here to watch the video, it is pretty impressive.

There is no nerve in my body pushing me to consider to go long at this point. Although, there may be a bit of steam still left in this push, I cannot see the markets going much higher. We have bought this market back up to levels with expectations of a non-recession economy by next quarter. If such lofty goals are not met, the market risks falling quicker then it climbed. Fundamentals, where are you? Happy trading.

Stocks were all over the board today as all indexes opened up in the green today as the Fed announced their plans to keep things "status quo." However, by the end of the day, markets closed with mixed feelings, having the Dow down almost 30 points, but both the S&P and NASDAQ up. The red closing for the Dow was very surprising, considering that it was up over 100 points at one point. More negative data, and and a rather "depressing" interview with Warren Buffett (I'll talk about later) brought down investor's confidence in the afternoon.

Today's economic data was also mixed. Durable orders came in much better than analysts expected and is now two consecutive months of positive growth. However, this can be very easily skewed by government spending as there is a lot of weight on aircraft and defense spending. However, new homes sales data came in far worse than many analysts expected. A reported 342K new homes sales were reported (360K expected), this will also most likely be revised to an even smaller number. Also, the number is less than last months number, which causes concerns for home owners.

So indeed the data is not sufficient to support a notion of a "recovering economy." The Fed discussed this fact in their report of their FOMC meeting. They still enjoy harping the tune "the worst is over", but are very careful to say that indeed we are bottoming. They agree that data confirms that we still show severe weakness in the economy and that there is still a lot of recovering to do before we see growth again. This is the "watered down" version, coming from our Federal Reserve, so I expect actual activity to be even worse.

The Fed also announced their plan to leave interest rates at essentially zero for the time being. To help fight climbing yields, they will also continue to purchase government notes and bonds, which they have now spent over $2 trillion already. To keep mortgage rates low, they will also continue to buy mortgage backed securities. Such continual Fed buying, mixed with government debt spending is creating an elixir of destruction, and is something that will need to be dealt with at some point, but they aren't concerned about that now.

Financials were rather strong today, but I feel they still should remain weak. I would have pulled the trigger on some FAZ shares today, if I were not out of the office. Even after several days of down trading, the markets are still showing weakness. This could be just the beginning of a rather strong downturn. Morningstar has some great valuation tools for equities that you can try free, Morningstar - Valuable insights and innovative portfolio tools. Get the Morningstar advantage with a FREE 14-day trial membership!. I expect some serious downward momentum to kick into the next gear shortly. Happy Trading.

The Fed's recent activity is a big contributor to the recent, slow growth we've seen in some sectors. One big reason has been their massive spending they have been involved in, not only by participating in trillions of spending through corporate and bank bailouts, but also by their massive purchasing of government debt (The Fed being the #1 buyer), which has allowed the government to offer trillions in bonds and notes without much increase, relatively, to yields.

Another big reason is their decision to allow banks to borrow for free. Several months ago, The Fed lowered the discount rate to essentially 0, in hopes to stimulate lending and allow consumers to receive favorable rates to spur mortgage activity. As a result, we have seen moderate activity, especially in the mortgage sector, however, other aspects of lending (especially commercial real estate) have remained pretty much frozen.

Tomorrow, The Fed will report on their two day meeting, in which they announce their decision of what to do with interest rates. Most feel that the rate will remain at 0, as the economy remains in a very fragile state, especially after the losses experienced the past week in Wall Street. However, the rates will not remain at 0 forever. In fact, this is one of the biggest tools Bernanke has to help regulate inflation, when that becomes more of a problem in the future. When the rate is indeed raised again, you can expect mortgage rates to follow. As a result we could see another slump created in the residential sector. I will talk about some serious concerns in the residential market and why I don't feel we are near bottom on the podcast tomorrow.

Today, we saw some slight bounce back down in the shorts. FAZ and SRS were down slightly, mostly due to many taking profits from yesterday's big gains. Commodities rallied in the afternoon, which was not surprising when you consider the beating they took yesterday as well. Depending on tomorrow's FOMC announcement, we should see this downward trend continue. Today, we did not rebound, mostly due to the housing report, but a rebound could be bound tomorrow, which would provide an opportunity for me to load up a bit.

Options should start showing some strength as VIX levels continue to creep up. The fear index grows stronger as downward momentum increases. This should weather quite well for many of my options (which by the way TradeKing has great rates for option purchases). Tomorrow should have some fireworks and I will be on chat to discuss with all of you. Happy Trading.

Call it a hunch or call it an overdose of OSD (Obama Stimulus Decisions), but I actually made a SHORT TERM move into longs today. Many more speed bumps have arrived into this road to destruction of our economy than I first anticipated and in order to maximize my value, I'm looking to try and play both sides a bit more, for the time being. Currently, investors are very vulnerable to just announcements of hope and with the new President being busy and active, I definitely feel there will be many more announcements to come in his first months of office. Please don't misunderstand me, I still strongly believe that our economy is still very much spiraling downward, I just feel I can make some extra $$$ on the bumps. Call it the day trader in me. I don't plan on actually "day trading" per say, but my trade volume should definitely be going up. I'm still very bullish in my current short positions, I would just like to make some cash on the bumps up to load up on my shorts at lower levels, because in the end, I believe the market will come crashing...and fast.

Today I sold off my remaining SKF and put them into BAC and C. With Obama just being put in office, he is wanting quick action. I expect to see things turn much quicker that we did with the Bush administration. Sure, this can eventually lead to worse things for the economy and probably will, but the point is the market will probably rally from it in the short term. These are the reasons to justify my longs. I do still have a strong short position in SRS, FXP and EEV. I just feel these can hold up better during these rallies than SKF and FAZ.

Either way, my holding of these stocks will be very short lived. In fact, I would like to be completely liquidated from them before Thursday's close, at latest. I do not want to be stuck with financials going into GDP announcements. By doing this, I plan to throw my gains from the hopeful quick rally into more short positions, which will, I believe, ultimately yield strong gains.

So far my plan seems to be working out for me as it looks as though Obama is trying to get his stimulus plan (maybe $900 billion) to pass ASAP. Although, he is getting a lot of opposition from the GOP, signs are looking good for the ability to get something passed as early as maybe next week. Just whispers of this has sent financials up almost 10% in after hours. If this sticks into tomorrow, I will most definitely shave some profits off the top, as with all speculative announcements, the cheering is usually short-lived. Also, as you can see, momentum charts for Bank of America do not look pretty. -75, OUCH. Get your own symbol analyzed for free, all you need is a name and email, Click Here.


Yahoo also announced "better than expected" earnings, however yielding a loss for the quarter. But, as usually, investors think of this as a good sign as the stock is trading up 5% in after hours. I actually like yahoo, even before the earnings announcement. I believe over the next five years, a lot of focus is going to be shifted over to e-commerce, which should indeed boost value for Yahoo. Plus, I also think at Yahoo's recent low stock price, they are still very vulnerable for a hostile takeover. I think something should happen, definitely before the end of the year.

Keep an eye out for FOMC's meeting notes tomorrow. We shouldn't expect much as far as a rate cute (since we're pretty much already at 0%), but they are definitely still capable of moving a market in either direction depending on their economic outlook. If something substantial is announced, we can expect to see a strong run in which ever direction it heads. I personally feel we will have an up day of trading tomorrow as the hope of new stimulus could really ignite the buying the next couple of days, pending that something largely significant is not announced.

New home sales and GDP numbers are still to come at the end of the week. As I said earlier, I would like to be fully out of my longs before that GDP number is given. In fact, I believe Thursday we may trade down just expecting a bad number. Analysts have tried to soften the landing by projecting an enormous -5.4% result. Their hopes is that anything even slightly lower than this number can be manipulated to investors as a positive sign and erasing the memory that our GDP just did indeed fall almost 5%. Sadly, I am not as easily fooled. Anything below 3% and I am running for the hills. Why roll the dice with longs right now when I can just stay in cash and earn 2.45% APY* with HSBC Direct Online Savings, all FDIC insured. I will be able to sleep better at night, that's for sure. So I don't see me in BAC and C longer than a week.

Well, let's see how tomorrow goes for my new long positions. I am a bit more nervous going long in this market as I feel it is more of a gamble, but I do see some opportunity in it. Check out these free INO technical stock trading videos, very informative, click here. Happy Trading everyone and have a good night.