Volte Face It was all good news for the equity markets starting with the FDIC backed acquisition of SVB by First Citizens Bancshares on Monday and ending with a tame inflation report on Friday. Every sector of the market rallied with advancing issues outnumbering...
For the three-month period, the S&P 500 Total Return Index increased 7.5% while the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Intermediate Bond Index rose 2.4%. After a difficult 2022, most financial markets recovered in the first three months of 2023. It might be more accurate to...
Monetary Phenomenon Bankers around the world stole the headlines and fortunately not their depositors’ money. The new breed of bankers is quite different than those envisioned in the song “A British Bank” from Mary Poppins: “They must feel the thrill of totting up a...
Confidence Restored “If I had ever been here before I would probably know just what to do…” The lyrics from the CSNY song “Déjà Vu” – which was released exactly 53 years to the day from the onset of the SVB collapse – provide our rationale that the mistakes that...
There will be no podcast version of this week’s blog as Research Analyst Brooke Kuby is participating in the annual Roth MKM conference. Fallout Three years ago, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic created a seismic shift in the global economies and financial markets....
Course of Action The stock market bounced back from its worst week of the year, finishing with its best day of the year on Friday. The rally seemed to be triggered by the comments from Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic Thursday afternoon, in which he suggested that...
Damage from Data “The Wacky U.S. Economy” is the most recent Barron’s magazine cover story. The article suggests that there is no precedent for the current economic conditions, therefore traditional monetary policy and forecasting tools are ineffective. Specifically,...
Recovery Ahead Whereas most media outlets seem to subscribe to the commonly accepted principle that bad news sells, we would prefer to channel the 1974 hit song from Rufus and Chaka Khan, “Tell Me Something Good”. Case in point, the hotter than expected CPI and PPI...
Humdrum Geopolitical tensions, hawkish Fedspeak, and lackluster earnings combined to produce humdrum financial markets. It was geopolitics on Monday with the U.S. shooting down a Chinese spy balloon over the coast of South Carolina. Several more flying objects were...
Five Words The combination of 5 dovish words from the Fed and encouraging data on the economy was able to overcome lackluster earnings reports and drive stock prices higher. Earnings reports continued to be subpar midway through the fourth quarter earnings season with...
Wild Rush The 2023 bull stampede on Wall Street continued as the economic data and corporate earnings reports declawed those grumpy bears. All the major market averages finished higher, with the Nasdaq Composite climbing 4.3% to rack up a fourth straight week of...
Robust Rally A robust rally on Friday erased the losses from earlier in the week, with high-profile tech stocks leading the bounce. Netflix Inc (NFLX) surged 8.5% after gaining more subscribers than expected, and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) added more than 5% after Google...
Solid Start Stocks registered their best weekly percentage gains since November, as the economic data releases and the corporate earnings reports encouraged investors. On the economic front, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index climbed in January to its...
Normalizing, Not Overheating Nor Collapsing The stock market surged on Friday following the December employment report which showed strong hiring and a historically low jobless rate combined with cooling wage growth. Following the report, Tavis C. McCourt,...
Good Riddance, 2022 The combination of Covid-19 concerns in China and the fourth consecutive month of housing price declines in the U.S. led to lackluster trading in the financial markets. In the equity indices, the S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, the Nasdaq Composite lost...
The S&P 500 Total Return Index increased 7.6% for the quarter but finished down 18.1% for the year. The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Intermediate Bond Index increased 1.9% during this period and finished down 13.0% for 2022. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained...
A Visit from St. Stock Market ‘Twas a week before Christmas with stock volume light. Bears were selling with few bulls within sight. No news Monday and Tuesday let stocks lower drifted. Wednesday’s Nike and Fed-Ex earnings helped markets get lifted. Investors cheered...
Liftoff The Santa Claus rally seemed to get a nice liftoff Tuesday morning with the release of the November CPI, which showed solid evidence that inflationary pressures were easing dramatically. Importantly, with the month over month increase of just 0.1%, the...
Spreading Cheer So far December has delivered a lump of coal to investors, with the market declining six of the seven trading days. The S&P 500 dropped 3.4% last week, while the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 fared even worse, shedding 4.0% and 5.1% respectively. The...
Soft-ish It’s beginning to look like Goldilocks might be hitching a ride in Santa’s sled, with the odds for a “softish” landing continuing to improve. Even the big, bad, Fed Chair Jerome Powell restrained from huffing and puffing and blowing the economy down during...
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