Crash Market Stocks - Financial Tips On Making Money In The Stock Market

After today, it would seem that investors have gotten over the most recent strains that were evident in markets recently as the Dow closed well over 200 points on Tuesday. Much of today's gain is a result from settling nerves regarding the European crisis, which seems to have softened a bit at the moment. Volatility still remains on high alert, so I would not be too confident in taking bull positions at the moment, at least I am not quite yet in my portfolio.

The public was just recently informed that the new estimates for oil leaking into the Gulf is much worse than originally expected. As such, I would expect BP's stock to not react well during tomorrow's trading. Already, it was bad enough as it is and with increasing spill levels, that problem only gets bigger for BP. In fact, I wanted to share with you a premium update charting video on Oil, which is being offered free for CMS readers, definitely worth watching.

S&P trends are passing strong thresholds right now. The big question is whether they can hold. A lot of attention will be put on new support levels. Just as with the oil video above, here is also a good S&P trends video update as well. You can see the new support levels are crucial. Happy Trading.

Friday's employment surely hung over investor's head over the weekend as markets experienced yet another strong selling day on Monday, in which the Dow closed down 115 points. Despite a morning rally, selling prevailed in markets as more uncertainty set in. Job loss reports were well below expectations on Friday, which caused for the bulk of the selling to close out last week. Unfortunately, a lot of variables hang over our economy's head, which is not providing an environment conducive for stock buying. Here are some factors that keeps our economy in limbo.

Financial Reform Bill
Much of what we have heard has been hear-say in regards to the large bill that is causing people all over the world wondering what this bill is going to do. President Obama would like the bill to be signed by the end of the month, however, those are aggressive goals. The fact remains that not much is known about the bill as well as what consequences we should expect with it passing. As long as it remains in limbo, I expect financial stocks to do the same.

European Banks
We have seen extreme weakness in European banks (especially Spanish Banks) recently, which is dragging down the global sector. The crisis in Greece is not helping things and if it were not for China bailing them out, there could be some serious problems.

Cleaning Up The Oil
It may seem that there is little correlation between an oil spill and larger scale economies, but that is not the case. In fact, the recent BP oil spill is continuing to create a lot of noise in the marketplace. 20,000 barrels of oil are flowing through the Gulf of Mexico as we speak, which there is no telling what kind of effects we can expect from that. The spill damage far surpasses original expectations and is only making oil consumers more angry in buying their product. Clean up that mess!

China's Slowing Pace
Much of the fear to global analysts was the rate at which China's economy was growing in such a little amount of time. Many felt that the country's economy would fall just as hard as it grew. However, thus far, China has seemed to manage well with it's slower growth periods and minimize any lopsided whirlwind. Thus far, China has been a good bailout for many failing economies (including the US) and needs to stay that rock in the midst of many declining markets.

These coupled with the continuing employment woes that the US economy is faced with, makes it hard to gain real momentum behind a rally. Sure, we should see rebound days here and there, but I cannot think there can be a significant run in the markets until many of these unknowns are solved. For the most part, the shorts have been performing very strong the past couple weeks and I look for them to continue to perform strong the next few weeks. Happy Trading.

As I anticipated, markets received a bit of a "whip" rebound after starting off the week with some strong selling. The Dow closed up 285 points, after two days straight of selling. China's uncertainty with European markets were a big factor in pushing down indexes during yesterday's trading. However, today, their move to step in and help European countries with their debt crisis helped spur a nice rebound. The question is, can this rebound continue into Friday, which lately has been a difficult task. I don't expect tomorrow to be any easier, as investors would have to hold through the extended, holiday weekend.

As we push farther into spring, we are starting to see some seasonal moves. First of all, oil prices jumped and will most likely continue to go up as the US Weather committee announced that this next hurricane season could be one of the worst we've had in 5 years. When considering what happened with hurricane Katrina, people tend to get anxious with these statements. As a result, oil and other commodities got a boost as they usually do during disaster warnings.

With seasonal adjustments come some possible opportunities. History shows that certain companies have consistently outperformed during spring months, which has resulted in strong gains for investors. It is hard to place a unique reason why some of these businesses do well during the months, but consistently, their stocks seem to improve. Here are a few, with their spring averages:

Office Depot
Average Spring returns: 40.44%
Best Spring season: 2009
Returns in best Spring: 406.5%

Priceline.com

Average Spring returns: 37.12%
Best Spring season: 2003
Returns in best Spring: 194.96%

Pioneer Natural Resources

Average Spring returns: 32.33%
Best Spring season: 2009
Returns in best Spring: 121.24%

Allegheny Technologies

Average Spring returns: 31.13%
Best Spring season: 2003
Returns in best Spring: 137.55%

Well, after yesterday's 300+ point loss on the Dow, markets rebounded and were able to close out the week on a positive note with the Dow closing up 125 points. In fact, I believe next week, we will see quite a bit more green. I was surprised to see yesterday's big sell off, not that I don't feel that we are overbought in the markets (I very well do!), I just feel that to closely track that "topping" curve we are seeing in the S&P, a bit of a rally back is needed to gain much larger momentum on the downturn. Two weeks ago, we saw a bit of what this trading environment is capable of. Who said we are not vulnerable to market crashes in this day and age?

One industry I have been tracking lately is solar. The past month, solar had been demolished due to its strong tie to European markets. In fact, Germany acts as one of the largest solar nations out there. Due to recent debt turmoil in Europe, solar has taken a beating. STP, a solar company I track closely has pretty much been cut in half in the last couple of months. I still believe there is a lot of upside in green energy stocks. Not so much because they are a financial viable business model, but more so that our current president has an agenda that he has proven he will stick to, and green energy is one on the top of the list. Already, bills have been proposed to exempt capital gains from green energy company investments as well as tax credits. If these perks get passed, watch for a big move into some of these companies.

As I have said before, Monday has been very reliable in turning into a green day. In fact, last Monday I was sure we were going to see our first selling Monday, as the market was down 180 points at one point. However, the market (or whatever powers it was) pushed back and was able to get all the major indexes back into the green before close. It was really phenomenal to watch. If yet again we see another green Monday, I will be impressed, as there is a lot of uncertainty going into the weekend with the financial reform bill. So time will tell.

Commodities should still perform well, as well as gold. After a bit of a rally back, I expect a pretty large jolt to hit markets, which usually tends to bring commodities to a premium. Also, Treasuries should get another bump as well. So for me, I expect a green week next week and hope to make some good profits to take advantage of it. I will also be attending the largest retail real estate conference in Las Vegas this weekend, which is always an eye opener. I will keep you posted on what the sentiment is like there, which is a wealth of knowledge. Happy Trading.

Well, markets opened up very strong on Monday, led by financials, as we saw the Dow close up over 180 points. Interesting enough, after just one day of rather strong buying, many are already believing this is the beginning of the next gap up. Many bulls believed that a significant pull back was needed to build a base for the next buying wind, and that the past two-three weeks was just that. Last week especially, seemed to favor only the bears, but this week it's the bulls that have the head start.

Although I firmly stand as a bear in our current economy, I do consider a new buying leg a possibility, a small one, but a possibility. As I have said in many of the posts, earnings is the key to the next market direction. Today, everyone showed that they are banking on very strong profits from banks, hence the big gains from financials today. Goldman Sachs reports tomorrow, which is the clean up batter for banks. Goldman has a very good possibility of hitting earnings out of the park, which in turn could spark yet another rally for banks. However, I am not so sure other banks are nearly as well off as GS.

If we indeed see another blow-up in financials tomorrow, I will be purchasing several December ending FAS put contracts. Many will feel that the "bar" will be set for financials by Goldman's report, however, it will be more like the ceiling. Goldman is their home run hitter, and I don't feel it will get any better than their report. I think the honeymoon for financials will be very short lived.

Also, tomorrow there are several big companies reporting earnings in the morning, that I think will set the tone for trading at least the rest of this week, if not the quarter. If we see some big crushing of earnings tomorrow, I believe we will find ourselves back in a tug of war, or even worse, a bit of a rally. At any rate, I don't expect these things to last and I definitely do not feel that we are out of the woods in regards to this recession. We will learn a lot from tomorrows trading and I will be most likely making numerous trades in my Zecco.com account.. I will keep you posted, especially on the premium podcast (subscribe here). Happy Trading.