U.S. Recession Part II – Off the Beaten Path
Continuing the theme of recession, two of my favorite off the beaten path economic indicators are below. The first is the Restaurant Performance Index, which essentially measures the health of the average consumer rather than the Wall Street executive spending $1000+ per couple at Masa or Per Se in New York City. You can see on the left side of the chart that this index steadily weakened well before the crisis hit and was solidly below the 100 level which […]
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Date: August 19, 2015
U.S. Possible Recession Part I – The Consumer
There has been renewed chatter lately about the U.S. economy being on the verge of recession. It’s not as loud as we (wrongly) heard in 2011, but it’s definitely growing. I vividly remember the Economic Cycle Research Institute doing interviews on CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg and just about every major financial website, pounding the table that there was almost 100% chance of recession in 2011 and their indicators were “never” wrong. “Never” is one of those words I don’t typically […]
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Date: August 17, 2015
China Devalues – A Look at Currencies
After a good close last Friday and strong stock market showing on Monday, the bulls hard a tough day on Tuesday as China surprised the markets by devaluing their currency, the renminbi or RMB, overnight in an effort to spur on exports. Japan has been trying to do this for several years by massive amounts of money printing. For most of the world, the free market sets the various exchange rates, but a few countries set their own exchange rates, which can […]
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Date: August 14, 2015
Bulls Want to Fight
After a clear loss to the bears last week, the bulls closed Friday well off the worst levels of the day and closer to the highs. That price behavior usually leads to some follow through buying the next day. Looking at the five major stock market indices, they look very different, which is not normal. The Dow and the Russell 2000 oddly look the most similar with the S&P 500 and S&P 400 together. The NASDAQ 100 has the most […]
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Date: August 10, 2015
Rolling Out the Red Carpet for the Bears
It’s been a rough week for the bulls with Apple taking it on the chin and the Dow Industrials down every day in addition to the last two days of the previous week. Early indications have the bears heading into the weekend with another victory. I want to go back to what now seems like a very prescient post on July 20 titled Trouble Brewing Beneath the Surface. On that day, all of the major indices were at rally highs […]
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Date: August 7, 2015
Fed Statement Day
Once again, the markets have come to the day when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) releases their statement regarding interest rates and their economic forecast. What to expect? Absolutely nothing on the interest rate front. As I have said before every meeting since rates went to essentially 0%, the Fed is not going to raise rates today. That day will wrongly come sooner than later, but not today. Rather, we will hear about the uneven recovery, wages, trade […]
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Date: July 29, 2015
Turnaround Tuesday
Stocks continue to be oversold in the short-term and a bounce is likely as soon as today. It’s Tuesday so don’t be surprised to hear the media focus on this historical reversal day. As I have mentioned before, I do not believe this is the rally to buy or chase. More than likely, stocks will bounce and regain some of the lost ground before rolling over again to what could possibly be the bottom to buy. I m keenly watching […]
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Date: July 28, 2015
China Again
A few weeks ago, I published a piece about the Shanghai having further to fall. Chinese Market Collapse Not Over Last night, Chinese stocks saw their largest decline since February 27, 2007, a day I vividly remember as I was running money for a hedge fund in Boston and about to leave for a week’s ski vacation in Utah to celebrate a belated 40th birthday with a bunch of friends. At that time, the prevailing sentiment was that the Asian […]
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Date: July 27, 2015
Homebuilders Still Offering Opportunities
The other week, I did an interesting segment with the good folks at Yahoo Finance regarding real estate, housing and the home building sector. You can view it HERE. In my 2015 Fearless Forecast, the home builders were one of my top sector plays for 2015 and they have not disappointed so far, although others certainly have! Sue Lee, the interviewer, asked me for a few companies which look particularly good. I answered by saying that I would much rather […]
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Date: July 23, 2015
Trouble Brewing Beneath the Surface
The more I analyze, the more I don’t like. The number of stocks participating in this rally has not been encouraging, but Friday’s action along with today so far is becoming eerily similar to that of 1999. Notice I said 1999 and not 2000. Valuations are nowhere near as egregious nor is sentiment showing much greed, not mention frothy. And monetary conditions are certainly not restrictive. On Friday, on the New York Stock Exchange, there were almost 1000 more stocks […]
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Date: July 20, 2015
