In today’s Sterling Market Commentary I look at a couple of pressures that I see facing the market. We also take a look at the Dow Jones Transportation Average and its influence on the market.
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Sterling Market Commentary for Friday September 28th, 2012
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Thursday at 13,485.97 I continue to see upside resistance at 13,558.92 and downside support at approximately 13,345. Volume on the Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to be light. I generally consider this to be a negative sign when the Dow Jones is trading at multi-year highs.
Sterling Market Commentary for Tuesday September 25th, 2012
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A Few Thoughts on Tuesday’s Market: I continue to look at the market with a nervous eye. I do not believe that the strength of the overall economy is nearly as strong as the major market indices would have us believe. This causes me to be concerned that we could see a severe and lasting downturn when the music stops. I think that the Fed has grown increasingly desperate, and it is running out of arrows in its quiver.
Sterling Market Commentary for Monday September 24th, 2012
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A Few Thoughts on Monday’s Market: The major market indices and a large number of the various sector indices that I track are obviously benefiting from the Fed’s 3rd round of quantitative easing, otherwise known as QE3. However to be very clear, I consider QE3, and the previously quantitative easings’, QE1 and QE2, to be an unprecedented form of market manipulation that is not only ineffective, but one that has very serious, negative unintended consequences that are detrimental to the US Economy. Manipulating interest rates to artificially low levels will not make up for bad fiscal policy out of our elected officials in Washington, DC. Worse yet, these artificially low interest rates are creating a bubble in all bond classes as savers either search for higher yields or safety; these artificially low interest rates punish savers with reduced interest income, and create a sense of uncertainty that is holding back business development. It seams that the only group benefiting from these artificially low interest rates is the largest companies in the US and global economy. These are the companies that dominate the major market indices; and that is why these indices are doing so well, while the rest of the economy is seems to be disconnected from the stock market.
Sterling Market Commentary for Tuesday September 4th, 2012
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In looking at the charts of Friday’s trading activity, very few of the charts I looked at appeared to be demonstrating any sort of a break from their recent trading ranges. The one exception to this is the gold and silver stocks. They all had breaks above recent trading ranges; and appear to be headed at least to new short term highs. Of course it is always wise to remember that gold and silver stocks have a tendency to be very volatile and can reverse course suddenly and without warning. With that being said, I found Newmo
Searching for a Micro-Cap Biotechnology Fund
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We are very pleased to announce that Erik Nelson, President of Sterling Investment Services had the following artilce, ‘Searching for a Micro-Cap Biotechnology Fund’ published in the 2nd Quarter edition of Micro-Cap Review Magazine. We have reprinted the article below for your reading, and a printer friendly copy of is available here.
Sterling Market Commentary for Monday August 20th, 2012
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In looking at the charts from Friday’s market, I noticed a couple of things. The 1st being that there were a significant number of stocks that broke through downside support on fairly heavy trading volume, and a lot less stocks broke through upside resistance on heavier than normal trading volume. The other item I noticed is that the S&P 500 ‘SPX’ has yet to surpass its yearly high of 1,419.04 set on April 2nd of this year; while the S&P 100 ‘OEX’ (which we do not hear much about anymore) surpassed its yearly high of 645.29 set on April 2nd of this year with its close of 646.22 on August 10th. While a couple of weeks of action may not be too significant in the long run, until we reach the long run there may be some significance in the short term message………………….
Sterling Market Commentary for Wednesday August 15th, 2012
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One of the things I noticed in my review of the charts from yesterday’s market was that the Dow Jones Transportation Average has not really participated in the market’s move higher this year. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average is higher by approximately 7.8% year to date; the Dow Jones Transportation Average is higher by only 62.09 points or approximately 1.24% year to date. For those who follow the Dow Theory and the relationship between the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Dow Jones Transportation Average, the lack of movement in the Dow Transportation Average is a significant signal. For me, this usually signals that either the Dow Jones Transportation Average is going to move sharply higher and play a game of catch up; or there is a significant risk that the Dow Jones Industrial Average will move back lower and give up the majority of its year to date gains.
Sterling Market Commentary for Monday August 13th, 2012
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I would not get too excited about the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s recent move above 13,000. On March 15th of this year the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 13,252.76 only to move back lower. On April 2nd of this year the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 13,264.49 only to move back lower. On May 1st of this year, the Dow Jones Industrial closed at 13,279.32 I think this forms an upward sloping trendline that is upside resistance. At the current levels, I see this resistance coming into play at approximately 13,330 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Until the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above this level, I would not get too excited about the current move higher.
Sterling Market Commentary for Friday April 13th, 2012
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The overall market moved sharply higher in a broad based move that saw basically every index I track move higher on the day. Thursday’s move in my opinion was nothing more than a bounce from the previous move lower, and was probably exaggerated to the upside by comments from the Fed about the possibility of continuing quantitative easing and greater than expected jobless claims. It is a sad state of world affairs where comments about maintaining emergency level fiscal stimulus is having such an impact over 3 1/2 years after the financial crisis of 2008. It is also a sad commentary on the market when so much of the activity is controlled by computers trolling the news wires for headlines to base their trading decisions on. Think about for a minute. This creates a market where the activities of a young writer, with no market experience at one of the networks or newspapers could influence the direction of the market by their mood of the morning. It also is a sign that fewer and fewer of the market participants are actually able to think for themselves. This can’t be a good thing in the long run.