Red Tuesday: Target, Kohls, Fixed Income and US Equities

By: Jeffrey Cohen, Investment Advisor Representative

Some good news and bad news in the markets today.

Retail had the bad news. Target warned lower on graphic images of weakness in their business. Kohls is selling themselves for $8B.

The balance of trade was good news, the Census Bureau here reported that the trade deficit narrowed by $90B on 3% more exports and 3% fewer imports. It's amazing how small adjustments like that can bring us back towards balance.

All major indices we follow were set to open lower in pre-market trading, including our new high BETA index we just rolled out this morning. All 'canary in a coalmine' or leading indicator industry segments were negative this morning. As an example, 100% of the trucking and transportation companies that were not unchanged were lower.

Covid: still here. Numbers of new cases are elevated, but stable. However, new hospitalizations are up to 3,808 yesterday, and this is an elevated level.

Bonds were lower, across all categories of US Treasury, US Agency debt, and Corporate Debt. However, price declines seemed to be moderating into the open.  The ratio of new lows to new highs is climbing again, and reached 20:1. For every one new high, 20 issues reached new lows, and most were in the investment grade category. 

None of the runners or potential short squeeze candidates seemed to be very active except for $HLBZ (up) and $MULN (down). The rest of the crew was trading very low volumes pre-market.

​ 

A few notes. This is not investment advice. We are not paid for blogging or video live streaming. We do this to share our messages and help others trying to make money in the financial markets.

If you like our work, please tell others.