U.S. Recession Part II – Off the Beaten Path
Continuing the theme of recession, two of my favorite off the beaten path economic indicators are below. The first is the Restaurant Performance Index, which essentially measures the health of the average consumer rather than the Wall Street executive spending $1000+ per couple at Masa or Per Se in New York City. You can see on the left side of the chart that this index steadily weakened well before the crisis hit and was solidly below the 100 level which […]
Read More
Date: August 19, 2015
U.S. Possible Recession Part I – The Consumer
There has been renewed chatter lately about the U.S. economy being on the verge of recession. It’s not as loud as we (wrongly) heard in 2011, but it’s definitely growing. I vividly remember the Economic Cycle Research Institute doing interviews on CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg and just about every major financial website, pounding the table that there was almost 100% chance of recession in 2011 and their indicators were “never” wrong. “Never” is one of those words I don’t typically […]
Read More
Date: August 17, 2015
China Devalues – A Look at Currencies
After a good close last Friday and strong stock market showing on Monday, the bulls hard a tough day on Tuesday as China surprised the markets by devaluing their currency, the renminbi or RMB, overnight in an effort to spur on exports. Japan has been trying to do this for several years by massive amounts of money printing. For most of the world, the free market sets the various exchange rates, but a few countries set their own exchange rates, which can […]
Read More
Date: August 14, 2015
Bulls Want to Fight
After a clear loss to the bears last week, the bulls closed Friday well off the worst levels of the day and closer to the highs. That price behavior usually leads to some follow through buying the next day. Looking at the five major stock market indices, they look very different, which is not normal. The Dow and the Russell 2000 oddly look the most similar with the S&P 500 and S&P 400 together. The NASDAQ 100 has the most […]
Read More
Date: August 10, 2015
Rolling Out the Red Carpet for the Bears
It’s been a rough week for the bulls with Apple taking it on the chin and the Dow Industrials down every day in addition to the last two days of the previous week. Early indications have the bears heading into the weekend with another victory. I want to go back to what now seems like a very prescient post on July 20 titled Trouble Brewing Beneath the Surface. On that day, all of the major indices were at rally highs […]
Read More
Date: August 7, 2015
Fed Statement Day
Once again, the markets have come to the day when the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) releases their statement regarding interest rates and their economic forecast. What to expect? Absolutely nothing on the interest rate front. As I have said before every meeting since rates went to essentially 0%, the Fed is not going to raise rates today. That day will wrongly come sooner than later, but not today. Rather, we will hear about the uneven recovery, wages, trade […]
Read More
Date: July 29, 2015
Turnaround Tuesday
Stocks continue to be oversold in the short-term and a bounce is likely as soon as today. It’s Tuesday so don’t be surprised to hear the media focus on this historical reversal day. As I have mentioned before, I do not believe this is the rally to buy or chase. More than likely, stocks will bounce and regain some of the lost ground before rolling over again to what could possibly be the bottom to buy. I m keenly watching […]
Read More
Date: July 28, 2015
China Again
A few weeks ago, I published a piece about the Shanghai having further to fall. Chinese Market Collapse Not Over Last night, Chinese stocks saw their largest decline since February 27, 2007, a day I vividly remember as I was running money for a hedge fund in Boston and about to leave for a week’s ski vacation in Utah to celebrate a belated 40th birthday with a bunch of friends. At that time, the prevailing sentiment was that the Asian […]
Read More
Date: July 27, 2015
Homebuilders Still Offering Opportunities
The other week, I did an interesting segment with the good folks at Yahoo Finance regarding real estate, housing and the home building sector. You can view it HERE. In my 2015 Fearless Forecast, the home builders were one of my top sector plays for 2015 and they have not disappointed so far, although others certainly have! Sue Lee, the interviewer, asked me for a few companies which look particularly good. I answered by saying that I would much rather […]
Read More
Date: July 23, 2015
Trouble Brewing Beneath the Surface
The more I analyze, the more I don’t like. The number of stocks participating in this rally has not been encouraging, but Friday’s action along with today so far is becoming eerily similar to that of 1999. Notice I said 1999 and not 2000. Valuations are nowhere near as egregious nor is sentiment showing much greed, not mention frothy. And monetary conditions are certainly not restrictive. On Friday, on the New York Stock Exchange, there were almost 1000 more stocks […]
Read More
Date: July 20, 2015
Chinese Market Collapse Not Over
I remember the outrage when the government sought to pull off TARP in 2008, first buying troubled, illiquid assets from the big banks which then morphed into outright capital injections into the banks. When QE was announced, the calls were equally as emotional, not to mention the myriad of special Fed programs designed to provide liquidity in the financial system when there was little. I can only imagine what those naysayers believe now regarding China. This is not a new […]
Read More
Date: July 15, 2015
Another Bad Deal… Iran
We woke up this morning to learn that the big western nations struck a deal with Iran to lift the economic embargo in return for nuclear concessions. In life, I have always tried to avoid rewarding bad behavior. Once you start down that path, it never ends. Just look what happened in this country with the S&L crisis, Orange County, Long-Term Capital and Bear Stearns. Talk about moral hazard! While Lehman Brothers put an end to that, look at how […]
Read More
Date: July 14, 2015
Reboot Greece
Since the latest “crisis” in Greece unfolded in the markets almost two weeks ago, I continued to offer that China was the real problem, but Greece was dominating the headlines. Greece doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, economically or market-wise. And even though they struck an absolutely horrific deal for their country, stocks will rally in the short-term because the uncertainty is lifted. Who in their right mind would agree to more tax hikes, more austerity and […]
Read More
Date: July 13, 2015
Q3 Stock Market Scenarios Unfolding Nicely
Last week after the Dow plunged 350 points and began to bounce, I offered the two most probable scenarios for stocks, both of which included new multi-month lows before any real rally would begin. Stock Market Scenarios for Q3 My conclusion was, “just because we saw extreme readings on Monday doesn’t mean that the ultimate low was seen. I would argue against that. Monday’s snowball day was an important piece, but far from the final piece. Wash out readings like […]
Read More
Date: July 10, 2015
Rip Off the Band-Aid Greece
As the early tally in Greece showed overwhelming support for the NO camp, meaning they wanted to reject more austerity, markets around the globe braced for another round of strong selling. As usual, the pundits got it wrong. Almost every single interview I watched or read had the vote almost a dead heat. “Famed” investor Wilbur Ross laid a huge egg in not only predicting a YES vote, but also positioning his portfolios for it and then trying to rationalize […]
Read More
Date: July 8, 2015
Greece Occupying Headlines But China is Key
Last Monday, as the stock market was in the process of falling 350 points on news out of Greece, I offered that the much more important news was coming from China where the Bank of China cut interest rates in an attempt to spur on the economy and support the stock market. That was barely a footnote in the media. After an extremely volatile week, reminiscent of 2008, and with the Shanghai Index down almost 25% from its peak, the […]
Read More
Date: July 7, 2015
Greece = Opportunity. Stock Market Scenarios for Q3
With Monday’s blog and Street$marts being on the long side, I decided to wait a day to offer commentary on how the markets’ reaction to the impending default by Greece, bank closure, referendum, etc. would impact the new month and quarter. To reiterate an important market tenet of mine which has been around for decades, it’s not what the news is, but how the markets react. We are constantly reminded of that with economic news. Is good news bad news […]
Read More
Date: July 1, 2015
Birds, Salmon and Russell 2000
As the birds fly south for the winter and salmon spawn each fall, it’s time for the annual reconstitution and rebalancing for the Russell 2000 index of small cap companies. The Russell 2000 represents the smallest 2000 companies in the Russell 3000 index. The companies which no longer rank in the 2000 are jettisoned and the new ones are officially added on June 26th. This is all based on the rankings as of May 31st. As this happens only once […]
Read More
Date: June 30, 2015
Grexhaustion… Leave the Euro Already
If you weren’t already exhausted by the constant stream of headlines regarding Greece’s inability to meet their financial obligations, you should be now! After more than five years of negotiations, deals, posturing and extensions, the situation in Greece seems to be coming to a head. I hesitate to use the word “crisis” because unless you’re living there and feeling the depressionary pain, this is really a fringe story. What I find interesting is that we are finally seeing all parties […]
Read More
Date: June 29, 2015
More Nonsense with Greece
Just wondering aloud if a single week can go by without any talk about will Greece or won’t Greece exit from the Euro. They are already in default, and historically, they have been in default more than they have been current, yet they behave as though they are in full control. Maybe they are! You know the old adage that if you owe the bank $100,000 and can’t pay, you have a problem. If you owe the bank $100,000,000, the […]
Read More
Date: June 22, 2015
