September 3rd, 2013

Alright, we're moved into the new house and settled.  My office is set up, and most of the "to do" stuff that needs to be done when one moves into a new house (painting, caulking, spackling, etc etc etc) is done.  This means I can finally get back to updating this blog on a regular basis.

I know the month of August was a huge down month in the market, and there was a lot of talk about the Hindenburg Omen.  Additionally, there's still a lot of anxiety about the situation with Syria.  I'm guessing that if we do go to war with Syria it may negatively impact the markets.

On the whole, though, the market hasn't been that volatile the last week or so.  Today was the first trading day after Labor Day, though, and that means we're watching for the post-Labor-Day "pop" which will be followed by a hard sell-off.

The markets in general, though, have definitely turned over.  I think a lot of what we're seeing is stock prices being over-inflated by the Fed's "heroine effect" of pumping money into the system with their bond-buying initiatives.  Don't get me wrong, I say ride the wave as long as they keep feeding it, but don't expect to ride this tidal wave of cheap federal money for ever.  When this does end (and it will), just be ready and make money to the downside.

Actually, be ready to make money to the downside anyway, because that's where the market's headed for at least the next month or so.  There is still the very real possibility of a crash by October.  Especially since there's possible war with Syria looming, possible fed tapering, and mutual funds have to dump their losers by the end of October for tax purposes.

Today the biggest news came from the tech giants.

It was revealed that Apple's share of the smartphone market rose 7.8% compared to this time last year, and Apple now controls 43.4% of the total global smartphone market.  Apple shares surged early morning on the news, but slowly declined as the day wore on.

Microsoft bought out Nokia in a $7.2 Billion deal.  Shares of Microsoft sank over 6% while shares of Nokia surged over 25%.  Microsoft struck the deal hoping this would give them a larger foothold in the mobile devices market, currently dominated by Apple.

Amazon.com announced a program today called Matchbook.  Matchbook basically lets you get an e-book copy of any real, physical book you purchased through Amazon.com for $2.99 or less (in many cases, for free).  Shares of Amazon.com surged on the news.

Since it's a new month, I'm going to look back at the monthly charts for the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq.

Dow Jones Monthly

Nasdaq Composite Monthly

S&P 500 Monthly

Intraday NASDAQ Futures Charts (July 18th, 2013 - CLOSE)

I was looking over the Futures charts just now on a 21-minute intra day basis, and came across something odd on the NASDAQ futures charts.  Toward the end of the day, from about 2:30 till the end of the day, the NASDAQ futures fell off a cliff.  See what I mean on the 21 minute charts...

See this story on Bloomberg's website.

Basically, the futures fell following the release of Google's (GOOG) and Microsoft's (MSFT) earnings results.  Both companies posted strong disappointments.  No wonder, every company under the sun (Google included) are trying to figure out how to wring more money out of advertising on tablet devices.

Microsoft seems to have no end of bad news these days.  Windows 8 is a MAJOR disappointment on both tablets and desktops.  So they effectively failed at cracking the ever-growing tablet market, AND managed to alienate long time desktop users.  The announcement of the Xbox One alienated over 10 years of gamers who dedicated themselves to the Xbox brand.  About the only thing Microsoft has going for them is Office which, let's be honest, not everyone is tied to like they were in the late 90's and early 2000's.  There's Internet Explorer... which every internet geek worth their salt knows is junk.  Sorry Microsoft, you need to innovate before you go under.