Thanks to good news coming out of the banking industry, Tuesday saw the stock market rally after a slow start. Many experts are saying Timothy Geithner, the Unites States Secretary of the Treasury, played a vital role in increases confidence in the nation’s banks.

Timothy Geithner and Barack Obama (Image: Flickr)

By the end of the trading period, the Dow Jones industrial average was at 7,969.6 — up nearly 1.7% on the day. NASDAQ was up 2.2% to 1,643.9, Russell 2000 was up nearly 4% to 470.1 and the S&P’s 500 was up approximately 2% to 850.1.

On Monday, banks suffered mightily on the stock market. On Tuesday, they did much better. Goldman Sachs was up 4.7%, Morgan Stanley jumped 4.8%, JPMorgan Chase was up 9.6% and Citigroup rose more than 10%.

Geithner said on Tuesday morning that most every bank has enough capital and that the industry on a whole isn’t in major trouble. Some experts were worried that a major government crackdown on banks in the forthcoming weeks would decimate the banking injury.

In the last few weeks, the United States stock market had been growing at a healthy rate due in large part to renewed confidence in the nation’s financial sector. However, that confidence took a hit on Monday and as a result the stock market suffered.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 3.5% for a total of 290 points. By the end of trading, the Dow was at 7,841.7. Other stock indexes showed similar struggles. The Russell 2000 fell more than 5.5% to 452, the S&P’s 500 dropped more than 4% to 832 and NASDAQ wad down approximately 4% to finish at 1,608.

Most every large bank on the stock market took a significant hit. Bank of America dropped more than 24%, Citigroup slid almost 20% and JPMorgan Chase was down about 10.5%. American Express, which some stock experts thought was prepared to have a great week, crashed 13% on Monday.

In the coming weeks, the stock market’s health will likely depend on the performance of the financial industry. If the banks continue to appear to be on shaky ground, investors will continue to be weary.

Citigroup (Image: Flickr)

JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest banks in the United States, revealed that the financial institution earned more than two billion dollars in the first quarter of 2009. The company pointed to high quantity trading, mass deposits and the low loan rates as reasons why JPMorgan Chase was able to post much better than anticipated earnings from January through March.

JPMorgan Chase is Making Money Once Again (Image: Flickr)

Although the bank took more than $25 billion in United States federal government bailout money, JPMorgan Chase said that it is contemplating paying back the bailout money. The bank also said that they do not believe that they need further bailout aid.

Although the banking industry seemed to be in much danger a few months ago, JPMorgan Chase is the third major bank to surprise experts with a high profit showing. Many industry experts now think that the worst days of the financial crisis have passed.

JPMorgan Chase may be further pressured to payback the bailout money due to the fact that the federal government is cracking down on executive pay for company’s that have received a bailout.

If you have a credit card with JPMorgan Chase, you may have some extra money heading your way. On Friday, the bank announced that it will refund the service charge it began charging for some cardholders at the beginning of the year. The charge was a $10 fee that occurred monthly. The bank said it decided to issue refunds after hearing negative feedback from numerous cardholders.

Credit Card (Image: Flickr)

While the monthly service charge will be refunded, any minimum payment requirements will remain. Some JPMorgan Chase cardholders saw their minimum raise from 2% to 5% at the onset of 2009.

Overall, the banking industry is desperate to have their customers pay back their loans. With more and more people defaulting on loans, banks have been more diligent in requiring repayment and more stubborn about who they lend money to in the first place.

JPMorgan Chase is one of the four largest banks in the United States. With roots that can be traced back to around 1800, it’s one of the banking institutions that is deemed too big to let fail by the federal government. As such, JPMorgan Chase got a federal bailout worth more than $20 billion in 2008.

After a bit of optimism hit the stock market world on Wednesday, the bad news returned on Thursday. With the market tumbling today, that makes it six poor days out of the last seven.

Empty Wallet - Source: Flickr

In fact, Thursday was such a bad day in the stock market that it wiped away the positive gains that occurred on Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell to 6,594.4, a loss of more than 280. The Dow hasn’t been this low since the middle months of 2007.

The Standard & Poor’s index also dropped a little bit more than 4% to land on 682.6. The S&P is as low as it has been since 1996. The NASDAQ index fell around 4% as well, while the Russell 200 dropped almost 6% on the day.

Virtually every industry felt the sting on Thursday. The biggest losers were General Motors and a number of the companies in the struggling banking industry including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Each of those three banks dropped at least 11% on the day. GM, on the other hand, fell more than 15%.

While some stock market experts think that the market may be nearing a bottom, other experts believe that the Dow Jones industrial average could end up at around 5,000 before the rebounding begins.

Source: Wire Reports

This is the third installment of Techie Tuesdays.  So far we have looked at Exxon Mobil and Starbucks, today we will examine J.P. Morgan Chase.

J.P. Morgan Chase is a worldwide financial holding company with over 228,000 employees worldwide.  JPM brought in $51 billion in revenue last year.   The financials sector has been subject to much well deserved scrutiny as of late, it is time to see what the technical indicators reveal about this banking behemoth!

Simple Moving Average: JPM is currently trading at $32.14 per share.  As of today, JPM’s 5-day moving average is $34.23 and its 200-day moving average is $40.74.  Looking at the chart below, we can see that both the 5 and 200-day moving averages are sloping downward. 

Chart by T. Silver, Data from Yahoo 

SMA Signal: SELL because JPM has been heading downward in the short and long-term and is currently trading below both moving averages.

Exponential Moving Average: JPM closed today at $32.14 per share.  As of today JPM’s 5-day exponential moving average is $34.90 and its 200-day exponential moving average is $40.68. 

EMA Signal: SELL because JPM has been heading downward in the short and long-term, and is currently trading below both exponential moving averages. Check out Yahoo’s interactive chart with the EMAs.

Looks like bad news all around for JPM, at least on a technical front.  Next time, I will use another moving average tool, the MACD.  Please feel free to submit a stock and check out Techie Tuesday’s track record.