Happy 9 Month Birthday to The Bull Market
Yes; I am very happy and I had a great weekend! Someone emailed me concerned that I did not add my usual two cents about the upcoming weekend. In my rush to bang out Friday’s blog, I must have forgotten. Fear not, we spent Friday night with a bunch of couples at our friends’ house with some gourmet food and great conversation. Mother Nature wasn’t so kind for most of the weekend, but I did squeeze in some outdoor activities on Saturday. Sunday was, as predicted, a complete and utter washout. I did get some good office time in and the Scottish Open was among the great finishes of the decade. I did hear about some far flung tennis event somewhere across the pond.
Lots of reading over the weekend. I saw in Barron’s that their semi-annual roundtable of “experts” continued to be negative. So much fodder for the bulls like me. One genius who began the year very bearish opined that because the first half was so good, there was no way it could continue and stocks had to be down for the next 6 months. Bill Priest said, “The back half of the year is fraught with peril…”. Where does Barron’s get these people? I kept asking myself if it was April 1st.
Happy 9 month birthday to the bull market. I remember doing so much media last October as I had high conviction that the bear market was ending and stocks were about to soar. I couldn’t believe the incredulity and almost disdain my forecast met. I need to dig up those videos and re-post.
Stocks have come a long way in 9 months, almost the 30% I estimated after a year in the S&p 500. The index is definitely stretched, but that doesn’t mean the bull market is over or even this leg of the rally is over. Investors have started buying the rally which usually means a little more upside and then either a sideways consolidation or mild pullback. Remember, we have not seen any measurable downside since Q1.
You have to continue to give the bulls a lot of credit. It seemed like yesterday when people spoke about a repeat of 2008, or worse, when three banks went bye bye. As expected, stocks bottomed on that news. With banks stable, semis, discretionary and transports all have risen strongly. Surely, the bears can’t argue that’s bad behavior. The transports are below, an index that doesn’t get enough attention. How can anyone conclude recession is imminent? Spoiler alert. They can’t. It’s absurd.
On Friday we bought SPLV and more levered NDX. We sold KBE and some IJJ.
