Summing Up The Week

If you were thinking the market could keep going up without pulling back, you could win the Most Optimistic Optimist Award for the week. After one of the longest weekly runs in history, the market was so overbought it was looking for any excuse to pull back, and this week was it.

Let’s take a look at what the bears used as excuses to drive the market down, shall we?

Market News

Job market stalls, but wages on rise?

Friday’s nasty jobs report capped off a week that went from bad-to-worse. Nonfarm payrolls raised a neglibile amount – 20,000 – while the remainder of the report fell below analyst expectations. February was the worst month for job creation since September 2017. Missing expectations on the report combined with global economic slowdown concerns to break the market’s unbelievable bounce from December’s lows, causing indexes to close down for the week.

China’s economy is cracking – Why is this bad?

The Shanghai stock market dropped more than 4% in overnight trading on Thursday, causing U.S. stocks to pull back. Although the fact that the Chinese economy is suffering from the trade war is good for a U.S. deal, it’s bad for the stock market as the global economy is interlinked. No date for the trade summit makes matters worse, as the market had gotten optimistic believing a trade deal was much nearer than it now appears to be.

Home Buyers Beware – The Housing Market may be Back…

CNBC reported Tuesday that lower mortgage rates may reignite the housing market. Industry analysts believe that although January’s gains in the housing markets were the lowest since August 2012, the Fed’s dovish stance toward interest rates may bring buyers out of the woodwork, once again igniting the housing market’s gains.

Even Advertisers Hate Facebook!

Although hating Facebook (FB) isn’t news, many companies who (used to) advertise on the social media network came out against its business practices this week. CNBC reported that many companies are proudly declaring their intent to become “Facebook-Free” prompting Mark “The Zuck” Zuckerberg to release a 3,000 word essay outlining a more privacy-focused future for the company on Wednesday.

Are Smartphones Killing Us?!

Pedestrian deaths are up nearly 35% since the introduction of the iPhone and other smartphones, reported CNBC on Tuesday. Remember that correlation does not necessarly equate to causation, but also remember to look around when you’re walking through a city, people, yeesh! We doubt this report will have much effect on either Apple (AAPL) or Alphabet (GOOG), but watch before you walk!

Next Week’s Gameplan

Now that we’ve topped out, it’s time to take extra-special care to make sure our trading plans are in order for next week – we might be in for further downside. If you need any help putting your plan together, check out our feature “Don’t Gamble With Your Portfolio” for tips and tricks to create a trading plan that suits you.

Crytpo Corner

Bitcoin’s got some game except…

Bitcoin had a relatively uneventful week after crashing the last time it touched “The Line That Shall Not Be Crossed.” The crypto coin even put in a new temporary bottom at $3,655.00 (even, no less) before breaking last week’s high of $3,910.00 (even if it was only by $0.88).

The problem? That $3,910.88 high was also right where “The Line That Shall Not Be Crossed” was coming down.

When this happened a few weeks ago, we warned speculators that they should consider locking in profits with stop-loss orders and not put new money to work.

Given the lack of positive news and catalysts, we’re sticking to the same advice here.

Let this play out until the week closes and we’ll see where we are at that point, eh?

This Week in Play

Stay tuned for this week’s episodes of our Investments in Play and Trades in Play coming online later this weekend!