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

Tuesday's trading trends brought memories back from late 2008 days. In fact, trading trends for the past few weeks have been very reminiscent of the uncertainty days of 2008 in general. To me, it is clear that the fast pacing, bullish rally has temporarily come to a close as it has been very difficult to gain momentum on the buy side. Even on days where strong data is released, selling continues to prevail. Today, was another wild swing day, which resulted in the market having an aggressive sell off to close the day and ultimately close the Dow down 112 points.

So why the selling now? We saw from recent months that the market has barrelled through uncertain times with flying colors. There are a couple answers to the questions. First of all, we've seen a return of volume. For most of the first quarter, volume levels remained critically low. Many of the institutions and big players remained sidelined and played the market very "safely" as to not get blindsided. Lately, we have seen a very big gain in average volume, especially on days of strong selling. As the volume continues to increase, it will be harder for market movers to manipulate indexes to move in the direction they want.

Secondly, we are now reaching global pressures. The US was center of most problems that began in 2007. Thus, it us the most. Although global pressures also existed, the US seemed to be experiencing it the worst. As we saw seeds of a bottom, many jumped back on the US bandwagon, trying to take advantage of those early reversal gains (which many did!). However, now global pressures are taking over headlines and there is a lot of speculation that those pressures can and will directly affect the US. Whatever the reason may be, the charts are looking quite optimal for short positions.

Manufacturing and select tech companies seem to be the only reasonably "bright spots" in the market at this point. Oil is taking a beating thanks to the BP disaster in the Gulf and residential builders are hurting from more and more reports of consumers selecting not to pay their home mortgages anymore. Ultimately, we cannot anticipate just how great effect these pressures will have on the US economy, but we can estimate it will be great. For many, taking a pretty good profit from the past year's gains is good enough and cash and bonds are looking better than ever. Today's inability to hold in the green shows that even with a new month and a new week, new beginnings are getting harder to make. For me, I am out of almost all long positions, and have been enjoying gains from some shorts and the VXX ETN. I expect continuing rebound rallies to occur frequently, but I do see a strong downward trend at this point. 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%

In the morning of today's trading, it was looking like markets were going to rebound a bit, after the selling start to the week. However, markets violently sold into close closing the Dow down 69 points, putting the index under 10,000 for the first time since February. Many analysts were expecting a good climb back at this point and today's selling close shows that investors are still very skeptical about economic pressures.

I have spent the last two days busily engaging myself in the annual RECON ICSC conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center and I thought I would share with you some insider information I have gathered so far. As for today's trading, we finally do see an end to the green Monday trading streak, which I believe was 15 weeks straight, as the Dow closed down 126 points. This is a significant move as, lately, the market has been heavily relying on the 100+ rally we have seen most recent Mondays. We saw it struggle last Monday, and today it continued to close. It will be interesting to see how this effects the rest of the week's trading.

Government regulation is causing a lot of noise in capital markets. Of course, everyone is familiar with the financial reform bill that is getting slaughtered in the headlines, however, this is not the only one making investors cringe. During the convention today, there was much talk about the the new real estate bill that is floating around, which would essentially raise taxes up to 150% for some real estate owners. Obviously, such a move would cause for serious consequences for owners, which there were many commissions from convention leaders to fight against the pending bill. The government has done a decent job of distracting consumers, while they initiate their massive new tax bills. We new it was in the agenda when Obama took office, however, I thought he would wait a bit before bringing on the taxes. Obviously not.

From a retail perspective, national tenants are actually expanding at the moment. Not so much in secondary and tertiary markets, but are fairly active looking for new locations in dense, primary markets. Local mom and pop stores are continuing to struggle as consumer spending is still very restricted in limited at the moment. Sales are still getting generated by big sales promotions and large discounts as margins still remain relatively small.

It seems, for the most part, lending is a bit easier to find than it was a year ago. However, leverage is much less than it was, and borrowers need to jump twice as many hurdles to qualify for loans. However, I hold from multiple institutions that they were actively acquiring loans on a variety of product types, which is a much better sign for markets. We will see how this remains as the government continues to step back from mortgage loan purchases and inflation begins to show up.

National vacancy continues to be a problem for the economy. Real estate owners are experiencing record vacancy numbers, especially in secondary markets. Not only that, but many rents have been slashed by more than 50% in just a year. I was amazed to hear about just how low some landlords were willing to go in rent to keep a tenant in their building.

As a whole, the overall attitude of the convention has been a lot more optimistic than it was last year. Sure, last year we were in the midst of one of the largest downfalls in US history, but it was more positive. Many do feel that we are a very long way from sustainable values and that a lot needs to still be worked out between banks and owners. There were a few who did still feel that the market will be getting worse and are still prepared for more downside on their properties. At any rate, they don't expect this year to get much better and if the government continues to budge themselves in, many of them said they'll be moving to Australia. Happy Trading.

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.