My friend Peter Boockvar is not a fan of unconventional policies at the Fed to boost the economy. He’s also been a critic of the way QE has artificially boosted the stock market. Here he looks at the recent weakness in the Russell 2000 that everyone’s so concerned about and ties it to the tapering…

The larger uptrend for the S&P 500, as defined by the popular 200-day moving average, remains intact. Shorter-term oriented players and strategies will be focused on the 50-day, however, which is in play this afternoon. The S&P 500 has broken below the 50-day moving average on a few occasions this past year and it hasn’t mattered….

Cartoon by Gary Varvel, Indianapolis Star

The bad news is the market looks just terrible today, the Dow’s off big after several back to back days of triple digit moves. The small caps are doing what small caps have been doing all year – struggling to maintain their longer-term uptrend, and EM stocks are being unceremoniously dumped in a landfill. The…

Cartoon by Harley Schwadron