First, I am very excited to join my friend and the most dapper man on TV, Charles Payne, on Fox Business’ Making Money likely between 2:05pm and 2:30pm today. I am old enough to remember when the stock market was obsessed with GE’s earnings. It was a huge market mover. Everyone opined. Networks lined up to have CEO Jack Welch join them. Then GE fell out of favor. The market then became obsessed with Apple’s earnings. Everyone followed the stock. […]
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They’re not making it easy. But do they ever? Yes, they do. Who is “they”? I’m not really sure, but I seem to use the pronoun a lot. Let me give you an example of one thing that confused me lately. Look at the two charts below. The first one is the Dow Jones Transportation Index which is made up of thing like airlines, rails, truckers and shippers. It is nowhere near its August 2023 peak which is concerning. Now […]
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The markets had a little down day, eh? I like when people ask me why the markets “crashed” on Tuesday. I mean, stocks are up 20% since the October bottom and hadn’t had even a 2% decline in three months. And we see a single down day of 1-3% and people are all beared up. I want to say that I don’t get it, but I totally do. It’s investor psychology and behavioral finance. And let’s be crystal clear like […]
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2023 ended much the way it began, with the bulls firmly in charge, our strategies locked and loaded long and me continuing to pound the table for higher prices. However, the financial market landscape could not have been more different. 12 months ago, it was difficult to find a positive forecast. I was almost all alone on the bullish island for 2023. Wall Street, the pundits and the media were firmly negative. Recession was coming. Inflation was out of control. […]
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Lately, I have heard some of the higher profile pundits compare this market to 1999. That is total nonsense and garbage. I am embarrassed for them. Either they are lazy and ignorant. I was there during the lead up to the Dotcom collapse. I vividly remember losing clients in Q4 1999 for not embracing the new paradigm. Client thought I was stupid for owning a bunch of pharma stocks. Next week, I will pull out some charts to compare the […]
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With the plethora of news the markets haven’t really gone anywhere lately. It seems like the world is now obsessed with the supposed narrowness of the rally and everyone has become a top down expert in the area. These kinds of divergences can matter tomorrow or in a year. However, the longer they go on, the worse the punishment will ultimately be. Of course, lack of participation can be fixed by, you guessed it, big participation. Below is a familiar […]
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On Friday we saw what I would consider to be a powerful jobs report showing that the economy created more than 350,000 new jobs in January. That was well above the forecast of 185,000. While I am sure someone in pundit got somewhat close, the masses were largely looking for a disappointing report. The “BUT BUT BUT” crowd was out in loud fashion qualifying why this was bunk. And then the political conspiracy crowd was parading around claiming government manipulation. […]
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What a week it has been! And I am always happy to be home from the road even though the weather was sunny and pleasant down south. Between the Fed, employment report and earnings from high profile names like Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, the markets have had a ton to digest. And with all that news you would think that there would have to have been a big move in the stock market. However, conventional wisdom would be […]
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BREAKING NEWS: Fed Leaves Interest Rates Alone – No Change in Balance Sheet Reduction Now you don’t have to wait until 2pm to learn the news that everyone knows already. Powell’s press conference may be a different story. Let’s start with the model for the day which is plus or minus 0.50% for the S&P 500 and then a big move after 2pm. Pre-Powell, that move was higher. Jay hasn’t been as kind to the market as his predecessors. With […]
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Last Friday’s blog, The Ducks Are Quacking – Most Selling I Have Done Since 2022, certainly generated a response. I do enjoy hearing from readers, whether you agree with my thoughts or not. I had to remind people that I am not turning outright negative and we still have a significant amount of “risk on” exposure, especially in our aggressive strategies. However, where we had more than 100% exposure in other strategies or where I saw odd underperformance, I reduced […]
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