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• The market pulls a Tiger Woods

  Posted Jul 23 2008, 10:18 AM by Todd Harrison
  Filed under: Investing, Apple, stocks, economy, todd harrison, american express
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  Maybe I'm being dramatic but yesterday's session reminded me of Tiger Woods at the US Open. By all rights stocks should have been looking at a moral victory, just showing up. Instead, stocks climbed off the canvass and won with the equivalent of two broken legs in the form of earnings reports and guidance from American Express and Apple. Investors should have been throwing their hats in the air when the closing bell rang.

  Now we need to figure out how this improbable session unfolded the way it did. Where did the grit and determination come from? I think the hero, without a doubt, was Charles Plosser (president of Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia). His comments about the economy sparked a reverse in the market even before the session began.   Read More...

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• A crummy 2 months for stocks

  Posted Feb 29 2008, 03:22 PM by Charley Blaine
  Filed under: Investing, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Intel, stocks
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  How bad have the first two months of 2008 been? Bad. January and February were the worst-ever opening two months for the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index. The Dow Jones Industrial Average wasn't much better.

  The advice investors should take away from the numbers: Be patient for a bottom. Be very patient. The odds that the market will recover completely by year-end aren't great, if only because it will take a long time to solve all the problems facing the banking system and the credit markets.

  (For some perspective, check Barry Ritholtz's blog The Big Picture. Barry also likes to toss in fun cartoons and thoughts about everything from digital cameras to rock music. Also, check Floyd Norris' blog at the New York Times site.)

  The Dow finished the first two months of the year down 7.5%. Since 1928, that's the blue-chip index's 6th-worst opening two months. The worst was 1933, when the index fell 14.3%. The next worst was 2000, when the Dow fell a combined 11.9%.   Read More...

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