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
Lyft a Bust??? Stocks Soar & Roar
Last week, we ended with the hottest and most anticipated IPO in a very long time. It was one that caused me to dust off my HOT IPO Roadmap and tell you to run for the hills. Lyft came public to all the glory and hoopla of a Ringling Brother circus. And certainly not to my surprise, it fell flat on its face after running above $88. Last I checked, it was sub $70. The pundits were chastising Uber for […]
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Date: April 2, 2019
Stocks Pause, Bonds Yields Collapse
Greetings from Baltimore with some absolutely beautiful spring weather waiting for me! I knew my day would be great on Tuesday when I arrived at the airport and saw not a soul around. From the time I dropped my car off at 7am to the time they closed the boarding door at 7:30am to the time I landed and picked up my rental car at 9:15am, every minute was a pleasure! And my day only got better from there as […]
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Date: March 27, 2019
Boeing, Mueller and Yield Curve, OH MY!
A week ago, I started off my writing that a stronger seasonal headwind was in play for the week, but I didn’t think it would be a significant decline. Stocks did pause overall, pulling back about 1% although it certainly did feel like there was more to it, especially if you watched the various headlines come across with Boeing and the Mueller investigation, BREXIT and the yield curve once again. For a stock market that has risen almost vertically since […]
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Date: March 25, 2019
Strong Sector Leadership. Seasonal Headwind This Week.
As I wrote about last week, stocks ended their deepest and longest pullback since the Christmas bottom. And that was all of 3% and 5 days. Not much for the bears to hang their hopes on. I also commented that I wanted to see which sectors led out of that pullback since it was unlikely that the rising tide would continue to lift all ships. Since the March 8th low, the bulls should be proud that it’s been a “risk […]
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Date: March 18, 2019
