Amazing April Begins
After a long holiday weekend, the first week of April begins with the bulls looking to build on the across the board strength from last Thursday. Small concern was definitely starting to creep in last week as participation in the rally was waning. Thursday was only one single day, but participation was a whole lot better. We will see what happens today as the bulls look for another big open to fresh, all-time highs. I do love writing, fresh, all-time […]
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Date: April 5, 2021
Your FRA and What It Means to Your Finances
When it comes to retirement, knowing your Full Retirement Age, or FRA, is just as vital as knowing your Social Security number and your birthdate – that “magic number” determines when you can start taking your full Social Security benefits, how much you’ll receive, and ultimately, how much money you’ll have in retirement. While Social Security likely won’t supply the bulk of your retirement income, especially for those planning a high net worth retirement, your benefits will play a crucial […]
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Date: April 5, 2021
Schatz Chosen to Serve on Federal Reserve Bank of Connecticut’s Board
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2021 In a surprise move to many, Paul Schatz, Founder and President of Heritage Capital LLC in Woodbridge, CT has been chosen to serve as a Director-At-Large for the Federal Reserve Bank of Connecticut located in New Haven, CT. It was only three short months ago when Schatz was offered a position on President Trump’s Council on Capital Markets, a role Schatz politely declined. “Look, I was so beyond flattered that President Trump and his […]
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Date: April 1, 2021
Epic Greed & Euphoria Lead to a Hedge Fund Blow Up
The new week begins with the Dow Industrials and S&P 500 at all-time highs. The S&P 400 and Russell 2000 should follow suit over the next few weeks. I am going to reserve judgement on the NASDAQ 100 for the time being as it remains at a critical short-term juncture. As I mentioned in yesterday’s email, we saw some “curious” behavior during the final hour of trading on Friday as the stock market went from sleepy to surging. It certainly […]
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Date: March 29, 2021
Nice Reversal But…
We saw a semi-impressive turnaround on Thursday led by the small and mid caps stocks. Interestingly, bond yields did not fall hard which is why leadership continued to come from the cyclical areas like financials, energy, materials and industrials, those same sectors I have been touting all year. I do like potential lows to be hammered in on Thursday instead of Friday, but the bulls should get a move on sooner than later. Negative seasonal trends begin to mitigate, but […]
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Date: March 26, 2021
Watching Technology Closely
Some days, I even surprise myself. This morning, I wrote most of my blog post, thought I uploaded it and then went about my day. As I was going through my post-market day wrap up, I noticed it sitting in the draft folder. Nice work Paul! Anyway, following up on my comments from Monday, this week was setting up to be down and the bears are trying hard to grab the upper hand. Without having the major stock market indices […]
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Date: March 24, 2021
They Don’t Make It Easy
Friday was another in what has become a long line of dichotomous days where the 5 major stock market indices were not all in sync. To add confusion on to that was how each of the indices were behaving over the previous two days. While Fridays are always tough days to glean much, especially into the close ahead of a weekend, it looked like Monday could set up for further downside although the Russell 2000 small caps looked the best […]
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Date: March 22, 2021
Heritage Capital Warns: 5 Common Mistakes Made with Social Security
Social Security is a cornerstone element in many retirement plans. It’s also a complex beast, and inattention to details can lead to costly mistakes. Planning how and when to claim your Social Security benefits should start well before age 62, the first year you can receive payments. By starting early and understanding all of your options, you’ll be better positioned to extract the maximum value from your Social Security benefits. While Social Security won’t be your only source of income […]
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Date: March 22, 2021
Crowded Trade Could See Quick & Sharp Reversal
Stocks continue to pull back from their recent all-time highs earlier this week. That is, except for the NASDAQ 100 which has been mired in a correction since mid-February as soaring bond yields have come at the expense of tech. I will say this; unless the NASDAQ 100 quickly closes above this week’s high point, it should be headed for new 2021 lows. The other major indices are behaving well and should see fresh all-time highs next month. It seems […]
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Date: March 19, 2021
The Single Most Important Fed Day Ever – Phooey
The stock market model for today is plus or minus 0.50% until 2pm and then a bigger move. However, with the S&P 500 at new highs this week, the usual ammunition for a big rally is gone. With pre-market indicating a lower open, the model is to buy anything lower than -0.50% and reduce or eliminate at 2pm. Here we go again. All the hyperbole about the single most important Fed meeting ever has started yet again. The deal is […]
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Date: March 17, 2021
Dow Crashes 3000 Points – 3rd Worst Percent Day on Record
First, I want to quickly thank so many of you who emailed suggestions and actionable info to help me secure a vaccine. A week ago, after having to put down one of our family pets, my phone rang at 3:55pm with an offer to vaccinate me if I could be at CVS in New Haven in 20 minutes. Suffice it to say, a law or two may have been breached. As I walked in, I received another call with a […]
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Date: March 16, 2021
The Unloved Become Winners
Last year, the theme was mega cap technology at the expense of everything else. Since my “pound the table buy bottom” October 30th, we have had a complete reversal of fortunes. Small caps have led the indices. Cyclicals like banks, energy, industrials, transports and materials finally sprung to life. Bonds became as hated as they were loved. It’s really quite fascinating how the markets value things differently in different climates. Investors who get married to a particular theme or stock […]
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Date: March 15, 2021
Yields Popping Again – More Classic Dichotomy
Stocks look to open lower to end the week as the 10-Year Note yield is surging again. That will put pressure on growth and technology to the benefit of my favorite cyclical groups like banks, energy, industrials and materials. Since the NASDAQ 100 peaked on February 16, there has only been one single back to back days of gains. More than anything else, that tells you how every rally is being aggressively sold. However, look at small and mid cap […]
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Date: March 12, 2021
Fox Business TODAY, The 10-Year Boogeyman & Dow 33,000
I am excited to join my friend, Charles Payne, on Fox Business’ Making Money today at 2:45pm today (Thursday) discussing SPACs and the epic greed and euphoria in the financial markets. The other day, I joined my friend, Tim Lammers, on Fox61’s Morning News to discuss my recently published e-book. Tim is the consummate pro and I really enjoyed sharing tips and strategies that anyone can follow as they plan for retirement. In fact, I am going to do a […]
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Date: March 11, 2021
Markets Full of Emotion and Tepper Speaks Out
So much going on today after such an emotional reversal on Friday. Let’s start with last week. After a rout on Thursday and an ugly morning on Friday, the bulls came roaring back across the board to close stocks near their highs for the day. Interesting to note that the major indices rallied 3-5% from their intra-day lows to the close. That is certainly emotional. One day reversal patterns look awesome on a chart, but they do not have the […]
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Date: March 8, 2021
Navigating Taxes IN Retirement
The road to lower tax paid runs through your entire lifetime, both pre- and post-retirement. The decisions you make before retirement critically impact your tax situation after retirement. But don’t dismiss the additional steps you can take within retirement to keep your taxes as low as possible. (This is especially important for a high net worth retirement, because the more money you have, the higher the taxes you’ll face.) How is Social Security Taxed? Social Security benefits are subject […]
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Date: March 8, 2021
Classical Dichotomy
In 1994 which seems like a lifetime ago, I played Rotisserie Baseball. It was the predecessor to all these super popular fantasy sports. 12 of us met right before the season began and we drafted our own teams from MLB rosters. Changes to rosters were permitted weekly although for an extra fee, you could do this daily and use what was called a fax machine to send in activity. On Monday’s the statistics service would snail mail leagues standings and […]
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Date: March 4, 2021
Strange End to Feb – Buying Weakness Remains the Play
What a very strange close to February. With the stock market up on the month and Friday a decent day, there were massive computer generated sell programs in the final 15 minutes that knocked the S&P 500 down more than 1.5% before recovering a bit into the close. Interestingly, there was not a TICK spike, meaning that the programs were not widespread. They were limited to a handful of major stocks in the index. We do not know why or […]
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Date: March 1, 2021
“EVERYONE” Talking Bond Yields Now
Thursday was an ugly day. It was one of those “throw everything out with the garbage” kind of day. All indices and all sectors were red. The surge in 10-year yields was blamed. As you know, my forecast for 10-year yields in the first half of 2021 was in the range of 1.3-1.4%. Bond yields hit 1.6% intra-day yesterday as you can see below. The next “logical” levels are 1.65% and 2%. I do not believe we see 2% this […]
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Date: February 26, 2021
That’s It? Decline Over?
Tuesday was certainly one of those wildly volatile days, the kind we saw often last March and a few times in June and September. What was interesting about Tuesday was that significant intra-day losses were reversed so close to an all-time high. That doesn’t happen all that often and from memory, it was behavior seen often as the Dotcom Bubble was fully inflating and about to peak. The question now is, was that it? Is the pullback over? To exaggerate […]
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Date: February 24, 2021
