Folks, prepare yourselves for another week of volatility. Markets historically sleep in a little leading up to Labor Day, and complicating things further is the big financial summit at Jackson Hole on Friday. This conference is huge: Last year, the Fed chair announced his QE2 stimulus plan there, and the markets are already anticipating something [...]

Folks, the bottoming-out process is messy. It’s ugly. And it can be very painful. For Exhibit A, take a look at what we’re going through right now. But if you’re a long-term investor with strong nerves who can be cerebral in times where emotion has clearly taken over, these are the times that can end [...]

Folks, I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve learned that there are traders’ markets and there are investors’ markets. As the nervous condition continues and the aftershocks from Monday’s pullback are compounded by problems at European banks, this market environment has become unsuitable for traders—you simply cannot properly manage risk when there’s this kind [...]

Folks, if ever there were a statement made by a CEO of a major corporation that perfectly summarized the way those of us in the business community feel about my fellow Chicagoan’s irresponsibility over the last few years, it was Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts. During his company’s quarterly earnings conference call on Monday, Wynn—a [...]

Folks, as we jump into a trading week in which there isn’t a lot of data coming out, we’re seeing a market which seems like it may be a little tired. We’ve got an S&P that’s down below that critical 1300 level, continuing a 5-week slide. We’ve got a dollar that’s all over the place. [...]

Folks, earlier this week I talked about the loaded spring that is the 10-year treasury bond. I suggested that a lot of the money that came out of the commodities markets was being docked in what’s perceived as a safe harbor until it’s time to put it to work again. Well, it looks like that [...]

Folks, looking at the markets today, futures are down, commodities are down. The market continues to correct itself after that parabolic move, and it’s really shed light on what I see as a reoccurring problem that needs to be addressed. I’m talking an entire world of people trading ETFs and not understanding what they’re trading. [...]

Folks, when last week’s silver debacle was in full swing—and when I say debacle, I’m talking about when silver ran up near 50 then dived down to the late 30s—I saw a lot of people who’d been trading ETFs wagging their fingers at the CME, blaming them for forcing a mass liquidation by raising margins. [...]

Folks, I’m making my way out to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada today for The Money Show, which is taking place all week. Joe Cusick, senior market analyst at OptionsXpress, sat in for me on this morning’s broadcast. I’ll be back behind the mic tomorrow for what has become the fastest and one of the most [...]

Folks, I received a number of emails asking about my move around silver during this correction, so I’m going to talk in a little more detail about the constructive hedge I made. Not because I’m trying to show off, but because if I were going to write a textbook, I couldn’t come up with a [...]