A December Bear – Wait For Godot or Bigfoot?
11 down, 1 to go. December is here. And while Q4 in general during a big up year is when portfolio managers start to chase the market, December is really when the mad dash happens. Similar to 2023 when the masses entered the year bearish, 2024 has had so many managers waiting and hoping for the big decline, the drop that never came. And now, those folks, once again, are concerned about job security as their portfolios widely trail their […]
Read More
Date: December 2, 2024
Bears Still Wrong – 47,000 Up Next
I am planning on a number of timely year-end financial and tax strategy blogs next month. I am always amazed at how few financial advisors do their jobs properly and look out for clients’ best interests as year-end approaches. Now is not the time to get lazy. The strong pre-Thanksgiving seasonal trend looks to be a bit mitigated this year. The markets remain on solid footing, but we didn’t have any weakness to set it up better. The chart below […]
Read More
Date: November 27, 2024
Tailwinds Are Here
I am just back from CA and that was a long trip home late last night. Friends, food and fun. I did get to binge the full second season of The Diplomat which I highly recommend. I also watched some of Industry season two which is a bit dark and not enough action for me. The Eagles played on Sunday night and I since I so dislike them, I couldn’t stand to watch the whole game. Let’s start with the […]
Read More
Date: November 25, 2024
Russia Threatens Nukes – Nvidia The Focus
The major stock market indices are within a solid day or two of all-time highs. From now into January is the most seasonally strong period. On Monday and Tuesday the war in Ukraine escalated with Russia threatening a nuclear response. Although the market fell quickly, buyers rushed in and the bulls had a big day as many scratched their heads. Remember, it’s not what the news is, but how markets react. This story doesn’t appear to be over and more […]
Read More
Date: November 20, 2024
Markets Giving Back Post-Election Boom
I have been saying that 2024 is not 2016 and people should not be expecting the same response. It isn’t a knock on the markets. It’s just how the markets came into the 2016 and 2024 elections. The landscape was very different. 2024 was all about the “haves” and the “have nots”, very similar to how our economy has been since the emergency COVID measures ended. On Friday, almost everything was a “have not” in the stock market. After the […]
Read More
Date: November 18, 2024
Post-Election Market Analysis Of Winners & Losers – What To Buy & Avoid
A new video is up. Post-Election Market Analysis Of Winners & Losers – What To Buy & Avoid On Wednesday we bought more MQQQ and QQQW. We sold SPYB and EMB. On Thursday we bought SPYB. We sold EEM and PDBC.
Read More
Date: November 15, 2024
Participation Not As Strong
The post-election, post-Fed rally has slowed. As I have said, this is nothing like 2016 and I do not believe 2025 will look anything like 2017. Markets sometimes rhyme, but rarely repeat. I don’t think they are even rhyming. Through the middle of October participation in the rally was strong and confirmed the advance. Since then it has weakened as bond proxies that trade on the exchange have been hurt by falling bond prices. The chart below is the S&P […]
Read More
Date: November 13, 2024
Post Rally Continues – Small Caps Poised For ATHs
The post-election, post-Fed rally continued on Friday. It is clear that the election released another round of animal spirits in the markets. While I definitely enjoyed seeing portfolios increase, I have been at this too long to believe this is one of those times to close your eyes and buy everything. And nor do I ever believe the markets are seeing a “new paradigm”. These are not political statements. It’s based on 35 years of experience in the markets. Someone […]
Read More
Date: November 11, 2024
Digesting The Post-Election / Fed Moves
Election out of the way. Fed out of the way. Q3 earnings season mostly over. Not many catalysts for a while. And that’s just the way I like it. Markets need to calm down and digest. Investors’ emotions need to recover. It’s been a whirlwind. As expected the Fed cut interest rates on Thursday and Jay Powell said he would not resign if Trump asked him. Markets didn’t really seem to care. The Fed made a mistake by cutting 0.50% […]
Read More
Date: November 8, 2024
Model Strikes Out – Major Victory – Markets Caught Off Guard – Don’t Buy Everything
Well, so much to cover, so bleary-eyed. I always stay up way too late waiting and then information seems to slow to a crawl. Early in the evening, I watched three independent betting lines and the stock market futures began to move significantly in Trump’s favor. It wasn’t even 9pm yet. That was a tell. Somehow, the markets are usually right. It’s not absolute, but it’s pretty good. Our election model was wrong for the first time since 1992. It’s […]
Read More
Date: November 6, 2024
