S&P 500

The following comprehensive analysis of current market risks and concerns, represents one of the better summary assessments by both Brean Capital's Russ Certo as well as Bloomberg's market analysis team, of not only why there seems to be an increasingly more tangible sense of gloom covering global capital markets, but also why investors are increasingly withdrawing from risk, leaving central banks to duke it out among themselves.

Traders Pull ‘Singed Fingertips’ From Markets as Risks Escalate

We are now in the worst seasonal period for stocks.

The old adage “sell in May and go away” does have some merit. According to the Ned Davis (NDR) database, had you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 every May 1st starting in 1950 and sold October 31 of the same year, your initial position would only be worth $10,026 as of 2008. Put another way, by investing only from May through October, a $10,000 stake invested in 1950 would have only made $26 in 57 years.

Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

Following last week's relentless drop in Apple, and what appears to be a head and shoulders cap to the S&P rally which started with a double bottom in February, two questions posed most frequently by traders are i) what happens to AAPL next and ii) where does the S&P go from here.

We don't know, since fundamentals clearly dont' matter while technicals tend to be offset on virtually every step by some new and improved jawboning by central bankers, however, here is one attempt to answer that question by Bank of America's chief chartist Stephen Suttmeier.

The first quarter earnings season is almost over (91% of companies have reported) and the results, while not quite as dire as forecast just over a month ago, still led to the worst quarterly report since the financial crisis, mostly due to a widely expected collapse in energy revenues and earnings, however the big surprise was the disappointing misses in numerous consumer and retail stocks, the result of which was a plunge in the retail index...