Don’t look now, but the bulls have scored two big up days in the last three days with an intervening reversal on Monday. We are finally seeing a surge in buying interest as the many of the major indices attempt to exceed their late June highs. If successful that would be higher highs and higher lows. If I am wrong and the bear market is about to resume we should see immediate failure by the bulls. The S&P 500 is […]
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The news this week has been putrid, like Tiger Woods’ golf at the British Open. CPI was hot. PPI was hot. Talk has turned to a full 1% rate hike by the Fed on July 27th. Bank earnings hasn’t been very good so far except for Citibank. Yet, as I write this before lunch the S&P 500 is down a little more than 1% this week. The NASDAQ 100 is down even less. With all that bad news, the casual […]
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On Tuesday I saw a tweet quoting someone in the Biden Administration as saying that today’s inflation data had “stale” energy prices in it. To me that meant he had already seen the report and was prepping the markets and people for a hot CPI today. The stock market hung in nicely on Tuesday until the lunchtime lull turned into the afternoon plunge. All in all, it still wasn’t an awful day. The government released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) […]
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On Friday the government released June employment data and revised prior months with real data, not the algo they use in real time. The economy created 372,000 new jobs well beyond expectations of 250,000 new jobs. However, April and May were revised lowed by 74,000. Wages gained 5% year over year. All in all this was another stellar report on the surface. However, markets now seem to be in the good news is bad news regime as a stronger economy […]
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The stock market has had a nice little rally over the past week. It still needs to clear some upside to see that defined higher highs and higher lows, but let’s not be greedy here. The rally hasn’t exactly been powerful or overwhelmingly strong. So far, it just looks like a bounce from A low but not THE low. These bounces can persist for days, weeks or months depending on how long it takes for investors to believe again. I […]
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As July, Q3 and 2H 2022 begin the financial markets remain volatile and likely to stay that way throughout Q3. Over the past month or so, I have been encouraged by the behavior in sectors that peaked first and led the decline, namely, software, biotech, innovation and China. Those groups continue to lead the nascent rally. As I keep mentioning, I love bonds, especially on a risk-adjusted basis through year-end. The rally off the low has been strong and certainly […]
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A new video has been posted. Is 2022 a Repeat of 2008?
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Almost every month in 2022 I have used the words “good riddance” as the new month began. I used it when Q1 ended and now I am saying GOOD RIDDANCE to June, Q2 and 1H 2022. None have been easy. As the calendar turns to July, there are a number of seasonal crosscurrents. During the second year of first term presidents, the stock market remains unappealing during the summer and often sees a major bottom in September or October. The […]
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After we finally saw a nice week for the bulls last week, the bears decided enough was enough and sold the opening in a big way on Tuesday. I expect chatter to quickly turn to whether a new leg lower for the stock market has begun and how much deeper the bear market can go. The best things you can say about Tuesday are that small and mid cap stocks did not lead the market lower and the NYSE A/D […]
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The bulls finally won a week. It took four weeks for a victory, and they were able to recover the full losses from the week before. That was no easy task! The stock market remains in bounce mode and the bulls should have more firepower to use in the coming days and weeks. Keep in mind that this is the last week of June and the end of Q2. Although there are significant losses in both stocks and bonds, we […]
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