May Certainly Ended With a Bang

I had my 40th high school reunion on Saturday. Since reunions started at the 5 year mark, the only one I have missed was my 35th when I had that tiny little mishap with that 50 foot silver maple and those 35 broken bones. It was so much fun to see old classmates and friends whom I hasn’t seen in years. Thankfully, Facebook lets many of us stay in touch. Very uncharacteristically for me, in my excitement to catch and speak to as many people as possible, I totally forgot to take pictures. And my wife was busy socializing with the 30th reunion class where she bumped into friends from college.

The new week and month begin with something for bulls and bears to each hang their hats on. Over a week ago, we saw a nasty and emotional reversal on the same day as Nvidia traded after blow out earnings. At the same time, sentiment was greedy, giddy and a bit euphoric. Picking on the Dow Industrials because it has been the weakest index, Dow 40,000 was the textbook selling opportunity for a quick 5% decline to 38,000.

And the other major indices were on their way to close May very poorly. That is, until the bulls grabbed their lunch and decided enough was enough. Looking at chart below you can see what happened after the noon lunch bell rang. Now, focus on the final 30 minutes and you see a rally of more than 0.50%. Of course, I believe there was plenty of end of month portfolio window dressing that forced some bears to exit positions for a lower market.

Given the strength of Friday afternoon’s rally, especially late in the day, the bulls should have more powder to use over the coming week. We also have a tailwind as the new month begins. On top of all that top, June-August are the strongest three months of the election year with an incumbent running, although right now, I sense the summer peak will come earlier.

Friday was also the busiest day for some of our portfolios in a long while. A close below last week’s lowest price and I am clearly wrong about Friday’s bullish importance.

On Friday we bought HYG, FDEV, FDVV, FBND, small cap growth and more INPIX, RYCIX, RYFIX, RYOIX, RYVIX and more SMPIX. We sold levered S&P 500.