Don Luskin

It never ceases to amaze me the way financial markets all fit together, like perfectly meshing gears in some infinitely complex machine. The day of the bottom in the yield on the long bond was March 22 -- the very day of the bottom in the Dow Jones Industrial Average....

Yesterday I wrote in this column that we had taken a position, as advisor, in a couple of gold stocks -- Newmont Mining and Homestake Mining. It's been over 20 years since I've traded gold stocks -- doing it again took me back to my earliest days of trading, back in...

Yesterday I wrote in this column, "So many people are so totally hypnotized by the "don't fight the Fed" mantra that it wouldn't surprise me to see a brief rally here, back toward the highs achieved two weeks ago. Maybe a narrow defensive index like the Dow Jones...

At least the Fed didn't blow it. The FOMC's 50 basis point rate cut yesterday gave the markets just enough oxygen to keep breathing until further evidence of a deteriorating economy necessitates the next rate cut. It could have been worse. And based on the fact that...

The world's biggest retailer proves the New Economy isn't just for tech companies. To be at the leading edge of the New Economy, a company doesn't have to make semiconductors or optical networking components, or even map the human genome. As much as anything else the...

A week ago I wrote here that the NASDAQ's highs of Wednesday, May 2, marked the closing bookend of the NASDAQ's fabulous bull run that carried it 35.6% from the bottom on April 4. So far I've been right. From May 2 through yesterday's close, the NASDAQ has dropped...

Once again we're faced with a market that doesn't want to go up, but doesn't want to go down either. Since last Wednesday's high on the NASDAQ -- which I said was the closing bookend on the NASDAQ's spring rally -- the markets have all been in consolidation. Yes, the...

Just like old times. Cisco beat by a penny. It was easy, too. All they had to do was lower expectations far below anything you would have dared to imagine in your worst nightmares a year ago. And according to CEO John Chambers, it'll be a snap to grow revenues at 30%...

Just a quick note this morning, to try to illuminate the nature of the cusp at which the markets find themselves. On Thursday the markets made it clear they didn't want to go higher. And on Friday they made it just as clear they didn't want to go lower. Friday was a...

Sometimes market moves begin and end with perfectly matched catalysts -- bookends, if you will. It's strange, but a single piece of news can first ignite a rally, and then later virtually the same news can extinguish it. And that's what just happened to the NASDAQ....

I've made some good money in the strong recovery that began April 4, and you probably have, too. And all along I've been saying it's nothing but a great big wonderful bear market rally. I must say, I've caught myself this week hoping the market would go down just so I...

I wrote yesterday that Alan Greenspan's repeated rate cuts weren't helping the economy, and that further cuts might not help either. We could find ourselves in the position of Japan, with rates at zero and an economy still spinning its wheels in a deflationary spiral....

Yesterday the markets thumbed their collective nose at the "Maestro." At Tuesday's close, all the broad indices -- every one of them: the NASDAQ Composite, the S&P 500, the Russell 2000, and the Wilshire Total Market -- were all slightly lower than they were on...

If you're a tech investor and you're feeling a little whiplashed right about now, here's an idea for you: strangle on SOX. I don't mean you should strangle yourself with your socks -- although I admit it's tempting sometimes -- I mean you should consider a particular...

Great. Now what. The NASDAQ has logged the best two weeks in its history. All the major market indexes have reinstated back above the long-term trendlines that they broke last month. The Fed has lowered interest rates for the fourth time so far this year. We've gotten...

The Fed's surprise 50 basis point cut in the fed funds rate yesterday took the markets -- and me -- completely by surprise. And yet the stock market's reaction was strangely muted. Don't get me wrong: yesterday was great. But the rate cut probably didn't have all that...