MarketChess

19Feb12:54 pmEST

Dow Credit Card Drama

Despite still being in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, American Express has almost half the market cap as non-Dow component Mastercard, obviously another credit card play. Visa, of course, is bigger than both AXP and MA and is also in the Dow.  Although we do not analyze the Dow as frequently as we do the other indices due to its narrow (only...

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18Feb1:15 pmEST

Checking in on Major General Chess

As noted earlier today both on my main X feed (@chessNwine) and with Members, I am deferring to the price action in crude oil in lieu of bloviating about whether or not America will escalate against Iran. You can be sure there are geopolitical pundits everywhere now, many claiming they have the inside scoop or have picked off a magical tell...

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17Feb1:02 pmEST

Deny All You Want, This is Reality

You may have noticed a strong rotation into defensive names of late, particularly those offering reasonable valuation and a reliable dividend. Indeed, the XLP (consumer staples) and XLU (utilities) ETFs have thrived so far in 2026, in addition to the industrials in the XLI ETF.  At the cross-section of several of those sectors we have the...

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13Feb2:49 pmEST

Afternoon Update 02/13/26 {Video}

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12Feb1:17 pmEST

Markets Do Indeed Have a Sense of Humor

The star of the dot-com bubble was Cisco, updated below on the quarterly chart. After earnings, CSCO is selling off today on the back of pressure from memory chip pricing.  But the larger point is that Cisco finally--finally!--made its way back to its prior dot-com bubble highs after twenty-five years of meandering price action. The stock came...

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11Feb3:16 pmEST

Intrepid Rotations

Much like the oil industry we have not heard much from the farmers and agricultural complex with respect to equities for a good while now. All of a sudden, however, oil stocks have improved mightily in recent months and then we have large cap ag machinery plays like CAT and DE essentially going vertical.  Soft commodities in the ag space like...

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10Feb2:36 pmEST

Until it Bends in the End

"The trend is your friend until it bends in the end." -Old Wall Street saying Software stocks in the IGV ETF are off to a terrible start in 2026. They were already out of favor, especially relative to other tech names like the memory segment of chips, since late-2025. But the slide became apparent to kick off the new year.  However, beginning...

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09Feb1:02 pmEST

Now We're Cooking with Gas!

The UGA ETF (below on the daily chart, zoomed-out) tracks RBOB gasoline futures contracts traded on the NYMEX. It is designed to reflect the spot price of unleaded gasoline in lieu of prices at the pump, which of course can fluctuate wildly in differences parts of the country.  As you can see, UGA is trading today at its highest level since...

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06Feb3:27 pmEST

Afternoon Update 02/06/26 {Video}

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05Feb2:41 pmEST

Did Bezos Really Leave Jassy Holding the Bag?

Andy Jassy became CEO of Amazon on July 5th, 2021, taking over for the great Jeff Bezos. The move came several months before shares of AMZN would top out for the next few years and not print new highs until mid-2024. That said, we know Amazon has since made a series of new highs into early-November 2025 before cooling off.  Still, I cannot help...

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