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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 is 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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Date: April 9, 2019
Jobs Friday
Today, we have what is always labeled as the “all important” monthly jobs report. Frankly, given the Fed’s recent 170 degree turn, I don’t think it’s that vital unless the data either completely fall off a cliff or completely spike. Both are unlikely. After February’s unexpectedly weak report, I said that I fully expect a sharp revision higher when March’s report is released in early April as well as a decent report for March. I still feel that is the […]
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Date: April 5, 2019
