Yellen the Safe Pick – Brainard not Far Behind
Joe Biden et al leaked that Janet Yellen will become his Treasury chief. Lost in the celebration of her becoming the first female to do this is that she that Wall Street absolutely loves the pick. I suspect a whole more than the progressive wing of the Democrats. Yellen is a known quantity and least concerning about upsetting the apple cart. Let’s not also forget that she should sail through a red or blue Senate for confirmation. Biden knows her […]
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Date: November 24, 2020
Sentiment Giddy
Last week, I listed a number of reasons why the stock market was on a solid foundation. Today, I want to counter that and offer concerns on the sentiment side of the equation. Remember, in the past two updates I described a tug o’ war or dichotomy. Below is a chart which shows the weekly bull/bear poll from the American Association of Individual Investors. Last week you can see in green there were more than 50% bulls while the bear […]
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Date: November 23, 2020
Stock Market’s Foundation is Rock Solid
As I mentioned the other day, stocks haven’t soared beyond their Pfizer Monday highs like most people “feel”. In fact, the opening from two Mondays ago turned out to be a pretty good selling opportunity in real time and in hindsight although I do not see this as a peak of any significance. There are two points of view now and both may end up being right. I briefly touched on the fact that market sentiment has become on the […]
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Date: November 19, 2020
I’M BACK – Markets Happy
As Randy Quaid said in Independence Day, Arnold said in Terminator and Jack said in The Shining, I’M BACK. Well, kinda, sorta. While Randy and Arnold were awesome in those movies, Nicholson is among the greatest actors ever and The Shining may be the greatest horror movie of all-time. I still remember watching it from under a table in my parents’ house with blankets making a fort around me. Hearing people say “redrum” continues to give me chills. As I […]
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Date: November 18, 2020
The Light at the End of the Tunnel – Thank You Pfizer!
It was amazing to wake up to see the huge success of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine! 90% efficacy. What a total game changer for the country and the world with hundreds of other vaccines and therapeutics behind that. I know that I will be the first in line when they allow me to receive the vaccine, probably next year. (For full transparency, we own Pfizer which has been a dog for too long.) Global stock markets are soaring again, but I […]
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Date: November 9, 2020
Fed Day – When the Ducks Quack, Feed Them
Although we don’t officially know the election results, it seems all but certain that Joe Biden will win and Mitch McConnell will remain Leader. And the markets are absolutely loving it. There were plenty of chances to buy ahead of this melt up and I was crystal clear about it last week several times. Now may be a better opportunity to feed the ducks as they are quacking. In other words, investors are hungry for stocks this week when they […]
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Date: November 5, 2020
President Biden & Leader McConnell – Markets Celebrate
Although the election remains too close to call, the markets have done a good job at telling us that the Senate will remain red while Joe Biden will likely win the presidency by a few electoral votes. That means political gridlock will continue which is exactly what the markets like. Neither party can push through their agenda. I haven’t done the research, but I don’t recall any time in the modern era where the House was blue, Senate was red […]
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Date: November 4, 2020
Our Election Model Has Spoken – And a Guarantee Thrown In
As I often do when a long-awaited event is here, Kenny Loggins said it best, “This is it, make no mistake where you are… The waiting is over”. While we may not know the election results by the time I get back to the office tomorrow morning, at least it will be over in almost every state. More on that later. Our own internal election model is based on three different series of stock market returns with varying weights to […]
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Date: November 3, 2020
Election Like Y2K – Smart Money & Tech Behaving Poorly
It’s been a long year. It’s been a long election cycle. Thankfully, it’s the bottom of the 9th and two outs. No one wants the game to go extra innings. For the past week or two I have written that whatever stock market move happens into the election, plus or minus a day or so, the opposite move should happen this week. In short, the bulls should steady themselves and a rally should begin. That’s a pretty exact forecast and […]
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Date: November 2, 2020
Approval Ratings Forecast Election Winner – Looking for a Big Reversal Next Week
Surprise? Before I get into the topic of how approval ratings can predict the election, I want to predict that there will be positive vaccine and/or COVID news by Tuesday. The Trump campaign knows where they stand and that is probably their Hail Mary although with more than 60 million votes already cast, it would be hard to believe that any news between now and Tuesday can sufficiently influence the election. Approval Ratings Forecast the Winner To continue the theme […]
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Date: November 1, 2020
