Chart of the Week

Watch Out! Bear Markets are Extremely Volatile and Bear Traps For Unsophisticated Investors.  The charts below of bear markets going back to 1929 show they are marked by extreme volatility with sudden surges amid longer term downward moves. If we have now entered another bear market, this kind of volatility can result in major losses…

As previously published in The Rich Investor: By John Del Vecchio You’ll be wishing the short Sellers were still here. On Monday global stocks suffered one of the worst drops in the last 10 years. The one-day loss ranks as the fifth-biggest for the decade. Of course, the market has bounced back from previous scares….

As previously published in The Rich Investor: By John Del Vecchio Confidence. It’s an important factor in the markets. And in politics. The markets can move wildly on changes in confidence. They can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Markets are a confidence game. Sometimes the markets are simply a con. It’s not that easy to accumulate…

Previously published on The Rich Investor: By John Del Vecchio The market value of Apple, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) is bigger than the entire U.S. energy sector. Think about that for a moment. Energy makes the world go ‘round. Apple is worth more than the entire sector combined. I noted last week in this space that Apple…

Investors’ Extremely Low Cash Balances Raise Red Flags for Stock Market.  SentimenTrader points out that average cash balances across a wide swath of investor types have fallen to  record or near-record low of less than 7%. That’s the second lowest in 40 years. In fact average cash balances among mutual funds is at a record…