RMDs Waived But Mortgage Rates Not Following Bond Market
Recently, I wrote about the April 15 tax filing date being extended to July 15 and the presumption that contributions earmarked for 2019 would also be extended. The IRS confirmed that this week. I also wrote about converting your Traditional IRA to a ROTH IRA, something everyone should consider. Additionally, the recently passed $2 trillion CARES Act did something that I do not believe has ever been done before. It waived the need for people over the age of 70 […]
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Date: April 21, 2020
Fill Your Cars, Top Your Tanks
As we enter a new week and “things” are calming ever so slightly incrementally, crude oil is the story of the overnight as the front month, May, expires and is in total collapse. This is not what it seems on the surface. Yes, crude oil is down sharply again, but the 30% crash has more to do with structure of the commodity contract than a real crash. I need to choose my words carefully and not overwhelm you with lingo. […]
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Date: April 20, 2020
Dow 40,000 Coming But Rest of 2020 Likely Not A Layup
During the vast majority of the bull market from 2009 to 2020, I was always among the most bullish people giving forecasts. I always kidded my buddy Tony Dwyer, market strategist at Canaccord Genuity, that he was the second most bullish person in the industry. I fondly remember Joe Kernen of CNBC Squawk Box fame laughing when I called the Dow to go from 14,000 to 18,000. My 20,000 target was equally dismissed. In late 2016, our model first opened […]
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Date: April 17, 2020
Bulls & Bears Both See Opportunity
Since the most recent rally began on April 2nd, here has the succession of up and down days. Up, down, up, down, up, up, down, up, down. We have not seen back to back down days, just like we never saw back to back up during the entire one month crash. Obviously, the current situation is on a much smaller scale. Wednesday was a down day and as I mentioned on CNBC on Tuesday, it looks like stocks may have […]
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Date: April 16, 2020
Bulls Make Big Progress But a Little Overdone
The bulls had quite the holiday-shortened week last, showing their best performance since 1974 and 1931. Both of those years were in the midst of very strong bear markets if you care. Clearly, what’s going today is without precedent. As I continue to mention, this is the first time in world history where the government shut down our own economy and induced the sharpest contraction ever from a high. On Thursday, we learned that another 6.6 million Americans filed new […]
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Date: April 13, 2020
3 Scenarios for the Stock Market in Q2
After big declines in stocks, it pays to hear what the masses are thinking because they are usually wrong collectively. At the last major bottom in December 2018, most people were looking for a rally and a revisiting of the Christmas low. I was in that camp. As we know, stocks rocketed higher and never looked back all last year. There were plenty of confirmations in January that another decline was no longer in the cards. Today, we have a […]
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Date: April 8, 2020
Bulls Huge Surge into the Zone
The bulls came back from the weekend in much better health with the intent of damaging the bears. Lots of hope on the Covid numbers out of NYC as well as the hope for the economy to reopen sooner than later. While I do love optimism, I don’t see the economy restarting so quickly. I think way too many confuse the curve flattening or peaking with things get dramatically better. But definitely count me in for hope! Monday’s rally was […]
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Date: April 7, 2020
Bulls Looking to Open New Week with a Bang
Without jinxing anything, the weekend seemed on the “quieter” side regarding the news. While it remains bad, things didn’t accelerate to the downside so that’s something. After an abysmal jobs report on Friday, stocks were not down all that much after finishing with a flurry. As I always say, it’s not what the news actually is, but rather how stocks react. A 30%+ decline prices in a lot of the bad news we are seeing and what’s in store down […]
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Date: April 6, 2020
Unfathomable Job Losses
On Thursday, the government reported that 6 million people filed for first time unemployment benefits. The states are finally catching up and able to process the overwhelming numbers. On Friday, the February jobs report saw 700,000 jobs lost with the unemployment rate over 4%. This is the first negative report of jobs since late 2010. I and everyone expect subsequent reports to be equally bad or worse. For decades, I have said that regarding investing, it’s not what the news […]
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Date: April 3, 2020
First Bounce Fails. Bears in Control
In the last two posts I wrote about what I saw as the bulls having the ball early in the week with the bears taking over as the week proceeded. After a day and a half run by the bulls, they quickly gave up by lunch on Tuesday, allowing the bears to enjoy yet another 90% down day on Wednesday where more than 90% of the volume traded was in stocks going down on the day. As you know that […]
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Date: April 2, 2020
