TSP Talk Blog

Well, it's the end of a wild month, and a wild year for the stocks market. Friday's action closed rather flat, but mixed, and the action was choppy with decent afternoon gains being given back in the final hour of trading. The Dow lost 76-points, but it felt worse since it was up over 240 with an hour to go in the day. The S&P was down on the day, but small caps and the I-fund ended the day with decent gains.

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The Dow , S&P 500, and Nasdaq were up 1.14%, 0.38%, and 0.86% respectively yesterday, so it was a nice day for the stock market, right? After Monday's "incredible", and Wednesday's "amazing", I can only say that Thursday's market was extraordinary. The Dow was down 611-points at the lows before a final 90 minute rally that took it up to the +260 level for an intraday reversal of 871-points. I am running out of words to describe the action, and the week as a whole so far. ...

Yesterday's commentary started with the word, "incredible". Today "amazing" may be appropriate to describe Wednesday's action. The Dow gained 1086-points, the largest point gain ever for a single day, and 504 out of the 505 stocks that are in the S&P 500 were up - the most since at least 1990. All of that is well and good, and any bottom starts with a rally, but don't forget ...

Incredible. In unprecedented action, there has never been a Christmas Eve with a loss of 1%, let alone nearly 3%. We've been through depressions, financial crises, the crash of 1987, the dot com bubble bursting, yet we're currently seeing relentless downside action that is some of the worst market action we've ever seen over in a short period, and now it includes the seasonally strongest part of the year. Is it possible that it is merely interest rates, tariffs, and ...

It was another lost opportunity for the bulls on Friday as an early 400-point rally turned into another 400-point loss and the downside pressure persists. According to my data, it was the highest trading volume day on the NYSE ever. The Nasdaq, particularly those old high flying FAANG stocks, were hit hardest, and small caps lagged the larger stocks. Will there be a Santa Claus rally at all? It's already a no-show but this week between Christmas and New Year's ...