Millionaire Now!: Monday Morning Market Comments and Links (for traders)

Millionaire Now!

This blog will: 1. Help you organize and simplify your financial life. 2. Bring you stock trading links and perspectives. 3. Provide tools to help you grow, finance and manage your real estate holdings. 4. Bring you real estate news and links to great articles on real estate investing. - Did you know that according to Vanguard, people who are organized in their finances are 39% wealthier than those who aren’t. I will help you become more organized and wealthier.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Monday Morning Market Comments and Links (for traders)

MORNING MARKET COMMENTARY
for Monday, July 6, 2009
Dow & S&P 500 Are Back in Negative Territory For 2009

The major averages got smacked on Thursday after the Labor Department announced a weaker-than-expected jobs report for June. Volume totals were reported lighter on the NYSE and on the Nasdaq exchange as the holiday-shortened week came to a close. Decliners trumped advancers by nearly a 4-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 5-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq exchange.

The Bank Index ($BKX -3.01%) has slumped under its 50-day moving average (DMA) line in recent weeks. Since financial shares are a valuable leading indicator, any breach of recent chart lows would raise concerns and hurt the near-term market outlook. On the other hand, any subsequent rally above the 200 DMA line (the red line) would be a very encouraging sign for all investors with market interest.

Two articles caught my attention these past few days. The first describes how FNM and FRE are starting to provide 125% mortgage loans. Isn’t this type of activity what got us in trouble in the first place? The next is an amusing expose from the WSJ (subscription required) outlining the inner workings of our friends at the Federal Reserve. You can see clearly from it who’s running the show there and on Wall Street.

The Nasdaq is up 11.9% year to date, while the Dow is down 8.05%. Since 1972 (when the Nasdaq was started), this is the second biggest outperformance for the Nasdaq versus the Dow in the first half of the year. In the four biggest years of underperformance (2001, 1973, 1974, and 2002), both indices continued lower by quite a bit in the second half.