Valentine’s Day is over, but there’s still a “whole lotta love” swirling around the stock market these days. In our weekly market commentary, it is noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed last week at its highest level since May 2008 while the S&P 500 is knocking on the door of its highest close [...]

This weekly market commentary contrasts the views of Warren Buffett and Bill Gross, who are generally recognized as two of the world’s greatest investors.  Buffett made his name in equities while Gross made his name in bonds as the head of PIMCO, a trillion-dollar money management company.  Both have outstanding multi-decade track records and both are [...]

How do you spell market rally?  How about “j-o-b-s.” This week’s market commentary discloses that a much higher than expected 243,000 jobs were added to our economy in January and that helped push the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its highest close since May 2008, according to Bloomberg.  On top of that, the unemployment rate dropped [...]

This weekly market commentary explains how at its most basic level, a trade takes place when a buyer is willing to buy at a certain price and a seller is willing to sell at that price.  Both parties could be smart, experienced, and looking at the same data, yet somehow one party thinks it’s a [...]

We’re only three weeks into the new year, and already some very interesting trends have developed in the markets.  In this weekly market commentary, consider these four trends: The worst performing stocks in 2011 have been the best performing in 2012.  Bespoke Investment Group did an analysis and discovered that the 50 worst performing stocks [...]

The U.S. became a member last August and, now, so has most of the eurozone.  Unfortunately, it’s not a club you want to join. This weekly market commentary reveals how late last week, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) announced it was downgrading the credit rating of nine of the eurozone’s sixteen members including behemoths France and Spain. [...]

Which stock characteristic most impacted the S&P 500’s performance in 2011? To answer that question in this weekly market commentary, Bespoke Investment Group performed a detailed analysis and concluded that having a high dividend yield was the most important factor affecting stock prices in 2011 (BespokeInvest.com, January 6). In their analysis, they discovered that of [...]

“Much Ado About Nothing” is one of Shakespeare’s famous comedies and, surprisingly, the title succinctly summarizes the U.S. stock market in 2011. This weekly market commentary reviews how there was “much ado” during 2011 as we experienced one of the most volatile years on record.  For example, regarding the S&P 500 index stocks, Bloomberg said, [...]

If it feels like the stock market has been volatile this year, you’re right.  Here are a few examples, as noted in this weekly market commentary: Three-month historic volatility for the “fear” gauge known as the VIX hit a record on October 31, surpassing the prior peak from December 2008. Intraday swings in the Dow Jones [...]

What’s more important to the U.S. stock market, economic growth or the value of the U.S. dollar? On the surface, economic growth would seem to be the logical answer since as the economy grows, earnings should grow, too.  But, in this weekly market commentary, digging a little deeper, the answer is not so clear cut. [...]