Sound Shape In weather parlance, March is said to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. For the stock market, March came in like a bull! The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed at fresh record highs, primarily driven by tech stocks with a kiss from some...
Sugar Rush The stock market got a pre-Halloween sugar rush, with the S&P 500 3.9% higher, the Nasdaq showing a 2.2% gain, and the Russell 2000 jumping 6.0%. The rally from the previous Friday continued through Tuesday, but disappointing results from Alphabet and...
Outbreaks and New Rates In our previous commentary, “War-Torn Week”, we adapted the blues song “Stormy Monday” to describe the tone of the market. We expressed our belief that in the upcoming week that the war would be the primary determinant of the direction of...
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...
Grizzly Declines Shortly after we posted last week’s “Where Are the Bears?” commentary, our ursine friends awoke from their slumber Monday morning, mauling investors who had celebrated another record close on the S&P 500 the previous Friday. The twin terrors of...
Last Week: Mr. Market, like Disneyland’s Mr. Toad, had a wild ride. Toad, borrowed from “The Wind in the Willows”, regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them abruptly. That sounds like a reasonably good description of most of the trading...
Last Week: The employment report for April released on Friday indicated that there were 266,000 new jobs added, versus the approximately one million that was forecasted. Additionally, March’s number was reduced by 246,000 jobs, suggesting that there are approximately...
Last Week: The Stock market seems to have become comfortably numb to good news, as equities essentially treaded water despite a plethora of good news from economic data, monetary policy, and corporate earnings. The S&P 500 reached another record high on Thursday...
Last Week: Investors continued getting what they want, as well as what they need, despite some storm clouds forming on the horizon. Stocks rallied to close once again at record levels Friday, with the S&P 500 topping 4,100, as investors ignored concerns about...
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: The Chicago and Wall Street Bears were both in hibernation as Thanksgiving gave way to winter. I turned off the game versus the Packers last night at halftime. Without Akeem Hicks in the middle, my 18-month old granddaughter Jane could probably gain 5 yards...
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, it would be an epic understatement to say that 2020 has been a most unusual year. In our family my birthday on March 12 comes first in the calendar and my son Alex’s on November 19th comes last. Flashing back to March 12th, I...
Markets: What a difference a week makes. A blue undertow (Biden won, but the Senate appeared likely to remain with a Republican majority) swept into the sea of red and turned the market green. Volatility vanished and FOMOTINATE (Fear Of Missing Out There Is No...
Last Week: From Dictionary.com: Stimulus (stim-yuh-luhs), noun. In economics, a stimulus is a government injection of money into an economy and intended to spur (stimulate) economic growth. If William Shakespeare were around in 2020 he might have penned “to stimulate,...
Last Week: Hot tech IPOs and renewed optimism on the development of COVID-19 vaccines provided a springboard for a rally in the markets on Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday afternoon’s FOMC meeting poked the bears back into action. The Nasdaq 100 sank as much as 2.8%...
Last Week: The market got off to a nice start on Monday after a weekend of significantly lower coronavirus deaths and bullish economic news from China’s state-run media. The middle of the week was dominated by a surge in COVID-19 cases and cautionary comments from Dr....
Last Week: I could just repost last week’s commentary and just change the specific numbers as the storyline was essentially a rerun. In fact, I will: The stock market party was disrupted as the Coronavirus upset the apple cart. Corporate earnings reports were strong...
Last Week: Despite a mixed bag of news, investors were treated to a Halloween rally that saw the S&P 500 gain 1.47% to set a new record high. The yield on the Ten-Year Treasury trickled down 7 basis points to 1.73% and the U.S. Dollar held steady. Apparently the...
Last Week: “He rocks in the White House all day long Hoppin' and a-boppin' and singing his song All the little traders on Wall Street Love to hear the President go tweet-tweet-tweet” Adapted from the Bobby Day classic “Rockin Robin” These are strange times indeed that...
Last Week: The market held onto its post-Christmas gains as reasonably good corporate earnings outweighed new evidence of a slowing global economy and continued uncertainty over trade policy. On the earnings front the blended (combines actual results for companies...
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