MarketChess

04Sep3:36 pmEST

It's Not Always the Easy Choice

Over the decades it has become Wall Street lore that investing long-term in "boring, safe, defensive stocks" with a dividend is a virtual lay-up if you have the patience and lack the desire for any kind of action in your portfolio.  However, that view has a blind spot: The liquidity bubble since the 2009 bear market bottom has found its way...

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03Sep11:54 amEST

Howd'ya Like That, Boys? A Copper!

As a follow-up to this June 24th piece , copper stocks continue to improve to virtually no fanfare. Freeport McMoran is the most (relatively) visible name, trading under ticker FCX. But Southern Copper, below on the daily chart, is another domestic copper play improving steadily. As you can see, SCCO is breaking out today alongside FCX and...

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02Sep11:25 amEST

Not Great, Bob

Several decades ago Warren Buffett gave an interview where he said, and I am paraphrasing, that in economics you always must ask the question, "And then what happens?". Applied to the current market we have just experienced a slow, tedious, volatility-free summer of endless slow-motion melt-ups ignoring any and all bad news. Given that, one...

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29Aug1:22 pmEST

Underowned and Underloved

It is the Friday before the long Labor Day Weekend, as we conclude a summer of mostly tedious price action (and non-existent volatility) against the backdrop of nonstop political and economic drama-filled headlines. Thus, we should probably take virtually everything we see, hear, and feel today with a grain of salt since many traders are...

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27Aug2:45 pmEST

Twenty-Five Years Ago to the Month

With NVIDIA earnings this evening it is worth revisiting a parallel we have previously drawn both here and with Members: The magnificent bubble and collapse of Cisco during the dot-com mania. CSCO still has not recaptured its prior highs from mid-2000, as seen on the quarterly chart, below. If you traded back then, you know that CSCO, with...

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26Aug2:16 pmEST

The Hangover Effect

It has been a wild late-August for Target after a summer-long rally abruptly ended on news of its CEO stepping down alongside a recent earning selloff. Overall, shares of TGT topped out back in late-2021 and remain well below those $268.98 highs, with the stock now trading in double digits as I write this.  For our purposes, however, the...

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25Aug3:04 pmEST

Summertime Blues

NVDA is up about 2% into the final hour of trading, headed into Wednesday evening's earnings which is, no doubt, the last remaining major firm to report this summer. Of course, we also have GDP and PCE data points later in the week, both of which could easily shift expectations for a September rate cut. In addition, President Trump is as active...

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22Aug3:10 pmEST

Afternoon Update 08/22/25 {Video}

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20Aug1:25 pmEST

I Respect the Strategy

News of Pepsi raising prices by 10% on their carbonated soft drinks in a few weeks hit the wires today. In addition, I saw a report that Monster Energy  (of which Coca Cola owns a piece) plans to raise prices on its U.S. energy drinks.  These price increases during an entrenched period of inflation should come as no surprise to anyone....

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19Aug3:08 pmEST

Rethinking Old Battle Lines

Today seems like the first day in forever that we are seeing coordinated heavy selling at the epicenter of the bubble in AI/growth/tech. High-flying names likes PLTR HOOD, chips like AMD MRVL, as well as monsters like NVDA are all being sold fairly aggressively into the final hour.  Naturally, one session does not a new downtrend make,...

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