Winter Is Coming The selling deluge continued with the S&P 500 losing 2.9% to finish at its lowest level since Christmas 2020. The storyline remained the same as the PCE, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, rose a whopping 0.1% more than forecasters expected....
Consumer Sentiment Crash It was no surprise to anyone watching the news over the last month that the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May nosedived back to the lowest levels in eight-years, and approached the nadir reached in the financial crisis...
Historical Impacts of Military Conflicts on Equity Markets While recognizing that the future of humanity has been permanently altered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our commentary will remain focused on the stock market and economy during this crisis rather than on...
Transitioning from Transitory to Tactical In our commentary from the week of June 21, 2021, we offered the following thoughts concerning Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s description of inflation as being “transitory”: Poor Jerome Powell probably listens to the opening of...
October is Over October finished on a high note, with the stock market having recouped all of September’s losses and reached record highs on Friday. Strong earnings reports from most companies overshadowed near-term weak economic data and disappointing quarterly...
Friend, Foe, or Fiction? The 50-Day Moving Average. Stocks touched their lowest levels in four weeks Friday, with the S&P 500 closing slightly below its 50-day moving average. Some chart-reading traders have expressed concerns that a key support area has been...
Last Week: The economic outlook continued to brighten, with the pandemic subsiding and the potent combination of monetary and fiscal policies priming the growth pump. The Big Bad Bond market growled as the 10-year Treasury yield jumped 8 basis points to 1.64%, hitting...
Last Week: We were often reminded during the recent challenging economic period that the market climbs the wall of worry. The inverse proposition might caution that the market can slide down the chute of good cheer. Following up on our most recent commentary, the...
Last Week: The Bulls are back, and I am not talking about the Chicago Bulls. The stock market rebounded from its brief slump to post its best weekly gains since November, with the S&P 500 bouncing 4.65%. Small cap stocks continued their recent surge, as the...
Last Week: It was a mixed bag of tricks and treats for stocks, with the S&P 500 suffering its worst decline since Halloween at -1.5%, while the Russell 2000 gained 1.5%, and 1827 advancing issues outnumbered 1402 decliners. The dollar, gold, and interest rates...
Last Week: The FOMOTINA Rally (Fear of Missing Out There Is No Alternative) kicked into high gear, with U.S. stocks hitting record closing highs again on Friday and the S&P 500 registering a 1.65% gain, its biggest weekly rise since early September. The rally was...
Last Week: All was quiet on the Wall Street front. The S&P 500 slipped 0.33% to break its six week winning streak, as reasonably good consumer reports offset modestly negative trade headlines. During that winning streak the market exhibited a remarkable absence of...
Last Week: My commentary from the previous week finished on an upbeat note, “The tone on trade improved over the weekend after President Trump said that Tim Cook made a “very compelling argument” that the tariffs on Chinese imports gave Samsung an edge over Apple....
Last Week: Inertia: a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force. With no changes to the narrative to motivate traders, the stock market pendulum has recently found a resting...
Last Week: The holiday-shortened trading week started with a doink (yes, I’m still mourning the Bears loss) as the IMF cut its forecast for world economic growth in 2019 to 3.5% from 3.7%, leading to a 1.42% loss in the S&P 500, the largest market decline since...
Last Week: Alongside the Chicago Bears, the Wall Street bears were major losers this week. It was the best of times, as there was news that moderated the bear market narrative driven by concerns over the economy, fed policy, and the trade war. As for the economy,...
Last Week: At the end of August, we noted a disconnect between the news flow and the markets performance: “The often-cited adage is that the stock market climbs the wall of worry. I would suggest that the current market is instead climbing the wall of “whatever”,...
Last Week: On Tuesday night, the mid-term elections went pretty much as planned, and the market responded with an impressive rally on Wednesday. Perhaps there was relief that the Democrats didn’t take control of both the House and the Senate, or perhaps there was...
Last Week: The S&P 500 slipped 0.25%, the yield on the Ten-Year Treasury slid 10 basis points to 2.85%, while the U.S Dollar strengthened over 1% to a new 2018 high. The chart below shows the link between the strength in the dollar and the S&P this year,...
Last Week: Our TIEs (Trade, Interest rates, Earnings) theme remained the dominate narrative, with relatively benign developments on the Trade and Interest rates front and continued spectacular Earnings. Unlike most quarters when analysts make downward revisions to...
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