Ken Shreve got his start in the financial markets with Investor’s Business Daily (IBD). He spent over 10 years as an editor and columnist for IBD and its Web site Investors.com. He also acted as the Investors.com "Market Wrap" anchor and presented IBD investing workshops and seminars nationwide. Shreve continues to provide market commentary on national radio and has appeared on CNBC.
He now writes Ultimate Growth Stocks, a weekly newsletter at TFNN and hosts Breakout Investing, Monday through Friday from 3-4 PT. Learn more at www.kenshreve.com.
Ken has also contributed to TheStreet, Realmoney.com and Realmoneypro.com and has been a regular contributor to Jim Cramer’s “Off the Charts” segment on Mad Money.
Sometimes, it's hard to makes sense of price action the major averages and individual stocks.
After three unequivocal days of distribution on February 20, 21 and 25 -- and an ugly reversal on February 28 -- the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite are back near highs.
And when it comes to individual stocks, well, Michael Kors (Nasdaq: KORS) beat t
Stocks were poised for a higher open Friday, partly helped by better-than-expected earnings from Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ).
Earnings and sales growth declined from the year-ago quarter but still came in well above expectation.
As major averages continue to move higher at a snail's pace, the calls for a market pullback seem to have subsided a bit.
The bears' case isn't a bad one by any means, but sell signals -- for now -- remain few and far between. Headed into Wednesday, the S&P 500 showed just two higher-volume declines in recent weeks -- nowhere near enough to cause problems for an uptrend.
You know expectations are high when a stock rallies 21 percent headed into earnings. That's exactly what Ruckus Wireless (Nasdaq: RKUS) did from Friday to Tuesday ahead of its earnings report after the close Tuesday.
It's usually not enough for a high-multiple stock to beat earnings and sales targets.
Earnings season is winding down, but this week is still busy as several high-profile names are set to report.
On Tuesday, watch for earnings from Rackspace Hosting (NYSE: RAX). The stock looks a bit vulnerable ahead of earnings.
Last week, it paid a visit to its 50-day simple moving average -- a key support level -- but no bounce yet.
Byron Wein was on CNBC this week saying investors were euphoric and a market correction was right around the corner.
“Euphoria” and “correction” are strong words, but the case for a near-term pullback isn't a bad one at all.
There's no shortage of stocks working now, but two former leaders in the restaurant space have been lagging the market as Wall Street questions growth prospects ahead.
Stocks with solid fundamentals showing bullish price action ahead of earnings always bear watching. Akamai Technologies (Nasdaq: AKAM) is in that boat now.
Earnings are due Wednesday after the close.
The market continues to act just fine. Don't let the naysayers get you down.
Do major averages look extended and overbought? Absolutely, but with everyone seemingly calling for a market pullback at this point, stocks could keep right on going.
With the iShares Dow Jones U.S. Home Construction ETF (NYSE: ITB) up nearly 200 percent since October 2011, all the good news has to be priced into the home builders already, right?
Maybe not, if recent earnings reports have anything to do with it.
Early Tuesday, D.R.
