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Jani Ziedins (pronounced Ya-nee) is a full-time investor and financial analyst that has successfully traded stocks and options for nearly three decades. He has an undergraduate engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines and two graduate business degrees from the University of Colorado Denver. His prior professional experience includes engineering at Fortune 500 companies, small business consulting, and managing investment real estate. He is now fortunate enough to trade full-time from home, affording him the luxury of spending extra time with his wife and two children.
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
The S&P 500 is racing to record levels, yet AMZN is stuck in reverse and down 13% from July’s highs. What gives?
I’m not a fundamental investor and will leave the financial report crunching to someone else, but this dramatic price divergence tells us something is definitely not right with this stock and it lost its darling status.
If there was one thing that could have saved AMZN, it would have been a blowout holiday shopping season. But rather than cheer Black Friday’s sales numbers, investors sent the stock down 3% since Black Friday. That pretty much dashed any hope of this stock rebounding before the end of the year.
The biggest challenge facing AMZN is it is struggling to find its footing just above $1,700 support. This is a key technical level stretching back a couple of years, but more importantly, it provided critical support during the June and October dips. Unfortunately for the stock, double-bottoms are a thing, triple-bottoms, not so much. And right now the stock is threatening to challenge $1,700 support for the third time in six months.
The very fact we returned to this level for the third time is a huge red flag and should make investors nervous. But more than that is these feeble rebound attempts since the October bounce. There just isn’t any life left in this stock. If people were going to buy this rebound, they would have done it already. Slipping back to these levels again tells me the worst is still ahead of us.
But not to give up all hope, a sharp crash under $1700 could actually be a good thing for the stock. That could be the capitulation the stock needs to recover its mojo. While I wouldn’t touch AMZN right now, if it slices through $1700 support in a fantastically ugly way, but then bounces back days or weeks later, that would be a compelling signal the stock is finally buyable again.
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Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $AMZN
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
The trade war is over and the S&P 500 surged nearly one whole percent!
Well, not exactly. The trade war is nowhere near over but Trump tweeted, “Getting VERY close to a BIG DEAL with China.” That kicked off this morning’s explosive rally. Well, calling it explosive might be overstating the situation a tad, but it was a good day and the index closed at all-time highs.
Anyone hoping for more is sadly disappointed by this somewhat muted reaction. But this shouldn’t surprise those of us that have been paying attention. Yesterday I wrote that the stock market was growing tired of trade war headlines and deal or no deal, we shouldn’t expect a move greater than 1% in either direction. Today we got the strongest indication yet of a deal and the index surged a measly 0.86%.
More important than deal or no deal is how well the market has been performing this quarter. Despite the relentless barrage of negative headlines, stocks continue pushing into record highs. While some people claim the market is complacent and that complacency precedes the fall, the thing most people fail to mention is complacency can last for a really, really long time. When confident owners refuse to sell, supply stays tight and prices remain firm. This will end badly at some point because it always does, but this is not that point. In the meantime enjoy the ride.
As for what happens in January, I have thoughts on 2020 but will save those for another post. Sign up for FREE Email Alerts so you don’t miss those thoughts.
What’s a good trade worth to you?
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Follow Jani on Twitter @crackedmarket
Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
By Jani Ziedins | End of Day Analysis
Free After-Hours Analysis:
Despite what the naysayers claim, the S&P 500 continues defying gravity and is hovering near all-time highs. This is even more impressive since the next round of tariff hikes are scheduled to take effect this Sunday. The list of reasons this market should be down is a mile long, yet here we stand.
Bears claim it is only time before the crowd realizes how bad the situation really is. But here is the thing, none of these bearish claims are secret. Everyone knows about the slowing global economy. The trade war between the world’s two largest economies has been raging for nearly two years. Impeachment, does anyone actually care? Everything is out there and the crowd already knows about it. There is no waiting for the other shoe to drop, the shoe already dropped. And most importantly, no one cared.
We trade what the market does, not what we think it should do. If this market doesn’t want to go down, we only have two choices, jump aboard, or get out of the way. Fighting it is only going to get yourself killed.
As for this weekend’s trade war escalation, the market has been growing bored of these headlines and every escalation and resolution has been received with a smaller and smaller reaction. Deal or no deal, it really doesn’t matter. We pop 1% if we get a deal, we dip 1% if we don’t. The days of five and ten percent moves are long behind us. The people who fear the trade war sold a long time ago and confident dip buyers took their place. If these dip buyers were not bothered by Trade War 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, or 4.0, chances are 5.0 won’t bother them either.
What’s a good trade worth to you?
How about avoiding a loss?
For less than $1/day, have actionable analysis and a trading plan delivered to your inbox every day during market hours
Follow Jani on Twitter @crackedmarket
Tags: S&P 500 Nasdaq $SPY $SPX $QQQ $IWM
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