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Tag: good jobs report

Tweet Watch Again

Although our models were flashing numerous green lights at the close on Monday, I wasn’t convinced that the final low was in. And nothing this week has made me feel any more comfortable. I am definitely not concerned about meaningful decline in the stock market, just that the 5% pullback doesn’t seem complete. Of course, you could push back and say that I am being too cute with such a relatively small decline and you would be right. What bothers […]   Read More
Date: May 17, 2019

THE Bottom or A Bottom? Banks Looking Good

After Monday’s mauling by the bears the losses mounted to roughly 5% and was pretty much in straight line fashion since the May 1 FOMC meeting. In other words, for all the fire and brimstone by the bears, all we have see, so far, has been a normal, routine and what I will call “healthy” single digit, bull market pullback. Very little internal damage has been done. The Dow Industrials said hello to its long-term trend, the average price of […]   Read More
Date: May 15, 2019

Tariff Tantrum Continues

The markets’ tariff tiff/tantrum is now a full blown tantrum. “I don’t want tariffs! I don’t want tariffs! I don’t want tariffs!” The truth is, as I wrote about before, the markets were setting up to pause, digest or even pullback modestly after the Fed meeting on May 1. They were just looking for that excuse which came in a big way over the past week or so. After another big down opening, stocks are continuing to slide lower, the […]   Read More
Date: May 13, 2019

Pullback Continues? All Eyes on Twitter. REALLY???

Lots of intra-day movement this week after stocks peaked on May 1 when the Fed concluded their two-day meeting. After 30 years in the business, I keep saying that few things surprise me anymore, but I have to say that watching traders and market participants glued to Twitter for any sign of tariff walk back by the president is certainly a first for me. I can’t imagine what the great investors of yesteryear are thinking as they down on us […]   Read More
Date: May 9, 2019

Renewed Tariff Tiff/Tantrum from Tweet

We woke up today to one of those infamous tweets from the President. Surprisingly, without notice, he began targeting China and a renewal of the tariff tiff or tariff tantrum. As you know, I am so firmly against tariffs as an economic weapon because no one ever wins. It’s just about losing less. In a perfect world, there shouldn’t be any tariffs at all and each country’s goods and services should stand on their own merit. As I have said […]   Read More
Date: May 6, 2019

Powell Pours Cold Water

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) concluded their two-day meeting on Wednesday with no change in interest rates, as expected. While markets initially reacted positively as the prospect for a rate cut later this year remained very real, Fed Chair Jay Powell, quickly and curiously doused cold water on those hopes, citing “transitory” low inflation. I call it “curious” because after countless years of historically low rates and multiple rounds of quantitative easing that created roughly $4 trillion of new […]   Read More
Date: May 2, 2019

GDP Blows Out. Stocks Don’t React.

It seems like after a few frustrating weeks with the server migration, the blog is back online with all content restored. If you see anything that isĀ  broken or clearly missing, please let me know. Thanks for your patience! On Friday, the government released the first look at Q1 GDP and it blew away expectations, surging more than 3% when some “experts” were forecasting 0% growth and many were below 2%. Given the magnitude of the Q4 stock market decline […]   Read More
Date: April 29, 2019

Sectors Strengthening. Buy the Pullback

First, I want to apologize for my inconsistent posting lately. We have been trying to migrate to a new and upgraded WordPress server at Godaddy and that has taken a lot longer than I thought. At first I didn’t realize that I couldn’t post new content until everything was migrated over and then I had to have Godaddy migrate everything over all over again. So, I am in limbo. Sorry about that. Thankfully, the markets have been very quiet lately […]   Read More
Date: April 22, 2019

Still Bullish. Junk Bonds & Taxes

Stocks have definitely been quiet of late although that’s from a bull’s perspective from the inside looking out. There has been a very slight drift higher. From a bear’s perspective from the outside looking in, it must be painful first watching stocks relentlessly melt up and then continue to grind higher day after day after day. These types of markets wear on anyone holding cash waiting to invest. From my perspective, I have tried to do my best not to […]   Read More
Date: April 15, 2019

Junk Bonds Say Full Steam Ahead

It’s been a fairly quiet few days for stocks after the better than expected employment numbers were released on Friday. The economy created 196,000 new jobs versus the 175,000 expected. As I wrote about then, I was expecting a strong number with a sharply higher revised number for February. While the former happened, the latter certainly didn’t as February was only revised higher from 20,000 to 33,000. There’s nothing wrong the major indices. All looks fine. The four key sectors […]   Read More
Date: April 9, 2019