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Guess What? The Yield Curve Is Steepening

Guess What? The Yield Curve Is Steepening

The yield curve flattened over the summer as fear swept the market. But now as it goes the other way, sentiment may improve in major banking stocks. The yield curve is the relationship between the two-year and 10-year Treasury notes. People buy 10-year notes when...

Stocks Remain Trapped as Market Waits for More Information

Stocks Remain Trapped as Market Waits for More Information

Stocks failed to break out last week as investors keep worrying about major global events like trade and Brexit. The S&P 500 rose 0.5 percent between Friday, October 11, and Friday, October 18. Still, it hit resistance at the psychologically important 3,000 level...

Big Banks and Netflix Surprise to the Upside: Earnings This Week

Big Banks and Netflix Surprise to the Upside: Earnings This Week

Earnings season started on a strong foot as major banks reported surprising growth in their core businesses. JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Morgan Stanley (MS), U.S. Bancorp (USB) and PNC Financial (PNC) all beat estimates in the last...

Emotions Flip Away From Safe  Havens as Earnings Season Begins

Emotions Flip Away From Safe Havens as Earnings Season Begins

Emotions seem to be flipping away from caution as earnings season begins. Safe-haven sectors including utilities, consumer staples, bonds and precious metals are all lagging this week. Meanwhile "risk-on" groups like financials, semiconductors and industrials are...

Trade War Drama Continues as Chinese Delegation Visits White House

Trade War Drama Continues as Chinese Delegation Visits White House

Key talks with China begin today, and things are already off to a crazy start. Last night, reports from Asia said the meetings had pretty much failed before they even started. Stock futures crashed immediately, then roared back after the White House denied the story....

Can Financials Hold? Huge Options Trade Targets Key Level

Can Financials Hold? Huge Options Trade Targets Key Level

Financial stocks got hammered yesterday, and someone's watching a key level. Check out this giant put spread in the SPDR Financial ETF (XLF), which holds key names like Bank of America (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM): 72,540 November 26 puts were bought for...

Market Gets a Timeline for China Talks, Just in Time for Earnings Season

Market Gets a Timeline for China Talks, Just in Time for Earnings Season

Investors just got a timeline for the most important concern facing the market, President Trump's trade war with China. Last night, CNBC reported that Vice Premier Liu He will visit Washington on October 10 and 11. Those are the first specific details the talks since...

What You Need to Know as Money Rotates Back to Value Stocks

What You Need to Know as Money Rotates Back to Value Stocks

A potentially big change tried to continue in the market yesterday. Two weeks ago, a new kind of stocks began to rally: banks, industrials, retailers and small caps. Meanwhile previous outperformers including technology, gold miners and real-estate investment trusts...

The Yield Curve Inverted, and the Bears Are Going to Work

The Yield Curve Inverted, and the Bears Are Going to Work

The big story today is that weak economic numbers overseas caused the yield curve to invert. That means the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds fell below the two-year rate. Stocks, especially financials, are crashing as a result. The "inverted curve" is a potentially big...