Author: The INO.com Team

Happy 100th Birthday, Fed

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Excerpted from Elliott Wave International's market analysis

By Elliott Wave International

On December 23, the U.S. Federal Reserve celebrated its 100th birthday. When legislation creating its existence was signed on December 23, 1913 (in a sneaky move during a holiday week), Congress granted the Fed a monopoly on creating dollars backed by debt.

The ongoing QE program is an unprecedented use of that power. This chart of the Fed's stated capital of $55 billion compared to its total assets of $4 trillion shows the extent to which the Fed is the focal point of dollar creation and therefore credit creation.

As John Hussman at HussmanFunds.com points out, this ratio puts the Fed's leverage at a mind-boggling 73-to-1, making the average hedge fund manager (at 2.48-to-1, according to BofA Merrill Lynch's November survey) look like a conservatively invested widow by comparison. Continue reading "Happy 100th Birthday, Fed" →

Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) Implodes

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) was one of the top performing stocks in 2013. Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) reported on Thursday that total revenue and sales at its established US stores fell in the all-important holiday season due to intense discounting by rivals, supply problems for key products and generally weaker traffic in December. After starting out the trading year of 2013 at $12, this stock performed like the energizer bunny and kept going and going and going for most of the year. It hit a high of $44.60 on November 13th, a month before the all-important holiday season reality set in.

What Does This Company Do?

Best Buy Co., Inc.(NYSE:BBY) operates as an e-commerce and physical retailer of consumer electronics in the United States, Europe, Canada, and China.

Was Best Buy's Implosion Predictable?

No one can predict with 100% certainty what's going to happen in any given market. What technical analysis can do, and does do very well, is put the odds in your favor and give you a high degree of confidence that something is going to happen. It also acts to protect your capital when things go wrong in a market. That is done through the use of money management and discipline, both of which I talk about frequently on this blog. Let me illustrate for you how two simple technical tools would have helped you avoid today's disaster in Best Buy. Continue reading "Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) Implodes" →

Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) Under The Microscope

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Today, I'm going to be analyzing Dollar Tree, Inc.(NASDAQ:DLTR). Dollar Tree has had enjoyed a spectacular rise over the last 5 years. After trading below $7 in January of 2008, this stock stayed in a pretty convincing uptrend and made an all-time high of $60.19 on October 21, 2013.

This in-depth analysis of Dollar Tree is not to say the stock can’t go higher, perhaps later in the year, but rather noting certain technical elements that are falling in place that do not look good for this stock. You only have to look back at stocks like Netflix and Apple to see how they can have spectacular falls from all-time highs and still come back.

Not shown on today's chart are 2 negative engulfing lines that occurred in the past 9 weeks on the weekly chart. That is another bad technical sign for this market.

What Does This Company Do?

Continue reading "Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) Under The Microscope" →

Are We On The Brink Of A Gold Rush?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Hello traders everywhere! Adam Hewison here, President of INO.com and co-creator of MarketClub, with your video update for Friday, the 10th of January.

The market action yesterday was really a welcome to the real world, as more and more traders returned from their vacations. Yesterday saw many weekly Trade Triangles turn red, indicating that certain markets may be slowing down and moving into a transition period.

Both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ displayed weekly red Trade Triangles, indicating for intermediate term traders that a sidelines position in both of these indices was warranted. This is not to say that the move to the upside is over, it is just an indication that for now the upward momentum has been blunted and the safest place to be is on the sidelines.

Gold Says, "Buy Me!"

Continue reading "Are We On The Brink Of A Gold Rush?" →