Good Monday morning and welcome back. Hopefully, your computer doesn't make you WannaCry this morning as the global cyber attack has apparently infected more than 200,000 computers so far. Oil, North Korea, and European politics are also in focus this morning. A barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude was trading up more than a dollar in early trade Monday as the Saudi's and Russia publicly announced they favor extending production cuts into the first quarter of 2018. In the latest round of provocations, North Korea launched a new ballistic missile that can purportedly carry a nuclear warhead. And in Europe, Emmanuel Macron was sworn in as France's next President and Angela Merkel's party received a boost over the weekend, creating hope for stability in the region. On the markets front, stability seems to be the key word to start the day as there are no new political surprises out of Washington.

Since it's Monday, let's move on to an objective review the key market models and indicators. The primary goal of this exercise is to remove any subjective notions about the markets and ensure that we stay in line with what "is" happening in the market. So, let's get started...

The State of the Trend

We start each week with a look at the "state of the trend." These indicators are designed to give us a feel for the overall health of the current short- and intermediate-term trend models.

Executive Summary:

• While the overall trend of the stock market is up, the short-term Trend Model has sagged a bit due to the sideways action seen over the last three weeks.
• The short-term Channel Breakout System remains on a sell signal at this time. A close above 2404 would trigger a new buy signal.
• The intermediate-term trend of the market remains ...

In yesterday's missive, I began a back-of-the-napkin review of market conditions. For me, the question at hand is whether the bulls will be able to break out of the trading range that has been in place for the past two ...

From a near-term perspective, it appears the sideways consolidation phase continues for the broad market while the NASDAQ just keeps on keepin' on. And with the Comey firing causing a stir in D.C., it isn't a stretch to assume that ...

Once again, the headlines blared something along the lines of "Stock Market Closes at Another New High." However, for the second session in a row - and technically the second consecutive new all-time high for the S&P 500 - one ...

Good Monday morning and welcome back. The election in France, Warren Buffett wisdom, and oil are in focus this morning. On the election front, there was no big populist surprise in France on Sunday after Emmanuel Macron ran away with ...

Although nobody in the game expected Janet Yellen to make any moves regarding rates yesterday and the changes to the Fed's post-announcement statement required a microscope to identify, this week's meeting of the FOMC was important nonetheless.

After spending nine ...

As I have written a time or two over the last few years, I'm of the opinion that the much of near-term machinations in the stock market are now mostly noise. Humans making judgement calls about what they see in ...

Good Monday morning and welcome back. Politics in D.C., China, BREXIT plans, and France are in the news this morning. The good news on this first day of May is that the U.S. Government will not be at risk of ...

Eight days ago, the stock market looked to be in trouble. The S&P 500 had closed at a "lower low" on the daily chart, the weekly chart was in a downtrend, and the bears were busy telling anyone that would ...

While we wait on the Trump administration's proposal for reforming the tax code - a proposal that is likely to include a dramatic reduction in corporate tax rates - we might as well continue the discussion on how to build ...

The title of this morning's market missive is, "Merci à Nos Amis en France." Loosely translated, it means (and yes, I had to ask Google for some help here as I can barely order dinner in Chamonix without embarrassing myself!) ...

Good Monday morning and welcome back. Global markets appear to be in sigh of relief mode this morning in response to the preliminary round of the French election. Pro-growth, pro-EU, centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron emerged as the early leader as ...