Paul Shread

A very nice bounce the last two days, setting records in financial stocks, but one critical element has been missing: upside volume. With just 78% upside volume on the NYSE yesterday, and 71% today, we have yet to see the buying stampede that could cement a major bottom, either a single 90% upside day or […]

Better than expected results from Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) led to the biggest one-day gain ever for the KBX Bank Index (PHI: BKX) on Wednesday and sent the rest of the market soaring. Wells Fargo’s results — coming ahead of earnings reports from JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM), Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) and Citigroup (NYSE: C) […]

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) posted better than expected results late Tuesday, but it remains to be seen if the good news will have much effect on a market obsessed with financial fears. Intel’s second-quarter sales were up 9% to $9.5 billion, $200 million ahead of estimates, and earnings of 28 cents […]

Intense selling pressure at the open today, with more than 90% of all stocks trading to the downside at one point. Breadth had improved by the close, but things were still bad enough so that just 11 stocks made new 52-week highs, compared to 1154 new lows — the highest number of new lows since […]

Investors showed little enthusiasm for the federal government’s dramatic rescue of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) on Monday, as they battered shares of banks on fears that they could be next to fail. For tech investors, the day wasn’t much fun either. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) added just a fraction on stronger […]

The S&P (first chart below) got as low as 1225 today, just above its mid-term election year low of 1219 from 2006. Mid-term lows have held for at least a few years since 1934, so some kind of bounce seems likely soon. If there’s any good news on the financial front, it could be a […]

Better than expected results from GE (NYSE: GE) on Friday showed that upcoming earnings reports — at least from non-financial companies — may do little to help the stock market, as investors remain worried about the health of the financial sector. Stocks plunged more than 2% early Friday on fears that Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) […]

Stocks managed to rise Thursday despite another day of worries about the solvency of Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM). Despite steep drops in the two, investors appeared to conclude that a government bailout would be likely if the mortgage giants faltered. A blockbuster merger between Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW) and Rohm […]

We have an extremely oversold market coupled with extreme pessimism (the latest Investors Intelligence weekly survey showed 47% bears and 27% bulls, the most extreme reading since 1994-1995), but we won’t get a bottom until we see buyers come rushing back into this market. The 2006 lows appear to be the most likely spot to […]

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) shares tumbled 5.7% Wednesday after a couple of analysts issued cautious comments on the company, and the rest of the market didn’t fare much better. UBS analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos said mid-quarter checks on Cisco suggest that business continues to slow in the U.S. and Europe, and Mark Sue of RBC Capital Markets […]

A 24% plunge in shares of VMware (NYSE: VMW) did little to stymie stock market bulls on Tuesday, as comments by top market officials soothed investors worried about a prolonged downturn. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed may continue emergency lending to investment banks into next year, and speeches by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson […]

Despite bearish sentiment being at 12-year highs, according to the Investors Intelligence weekly survey (check out the bear on the cover of this week’s Barron’s), stocks have yet to find a bottom. After the worst first half for stocks since 1970 — and with the strongest half of the election year coming up — the […]