State of the Markets
Things Are Starting To Break
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Anyone watching the action last week knows that technical breaks are happening in lots of markets. For example, my guess is you are aware that stocks broke to a new lows Friday, with the S&P 500 now back to where it stood in November 2020. And you may also be aware that the yield on t…
The Problem is Obvious, But...
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By now, the problem is obvious. Higher inflation for longer than had been expected. Ditto for the Fed's rate hiking plans. The outlooks for both the economy and earnings are heading in the wrong direction - and fast. In response, so too is the appropriate multiple to apply to those declin…
A Long Slog?
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About a month ago - you know, back when stocks were making "higher highs," new buy signals were flashing, and everybody was thinking that we'd seen the worst of the bear market - I remarked privately to a couple colleagues that while things were going well at the time, my biggest worry wa…
No Pivot For You!
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Given Friday's violent move in the stock market, I think it is a good idea to take a step back and review where we've been of late. The idea is to try and understand why the market has done what it has done, in the hopes that we can better know what to possibly expect going forward. So, l…
New Bull Market? Or...
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The question of the day is if the recent rebound in stocks represents the beginning of a new bull market - or - a run-of-the-mill bear market rally, which tend to occur from time to time during extended bearish cycles.
To be sure, there are plenty of talking heads for each team to…
The State of the Markets 8.8.22
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I am short on time this morning, so I am going to try something a little different this week. As part of my daily market analysis, I keep a running log (in brief, bullet-point format) of all key news/events/happenings in the market. The goal is to stay on top of everything in order to bot…
GDP Getting Real
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A great many folks, including a host of analysts and financial professionals, seem to believe that the US is currently in recession. They point to last week's negative GDP print as Exhibit A in their argument, suggesting that two consecutive negative quarters is the very definition of rec…
Keep It Out Of The Ditch
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Don't look now fans but it's been a month since the S&P 500 made a fresh new low for this bear market cycle. Yep, that's right, investors haven't had the bejeebers scared out of them nor been forced to face the discouraging stats regarding the degree of index declines since June 16th.…
What Will It Take?
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Stocks are starting the week on a weak note, basically following the leads from Europe and China (where a shutdown in Macau seems to have ignited COVID fears again). However, it is worth noting on this fine summer morning that the "action" has been improving of late. As in, there weren't …
