Last Week: The good news of corporate earnings for the fourth quarter of 2019 exceeding forecasts was overshadowed by concerns over the impact of the coronavirus on future earnings. Estimates of first quarter earnings growth have been slashed approximately in half so far with tremendous uncertainty in even those guesstimates. Fridays have been particularly challenging in 2020 with an average daily decline of -0.52%, as traders have been nervous about weekend [...]
Last Week: The rally resumed as the S&P 500 gained 1.58% to close at another new record high. Most of the action took place on Monday and the first hour of trading on Tuesday, as stocks recovered their losses from the previous Friday and then tacked on an additional 1% for good measure. Corporate earnings continued to top expectations with the blended growth rate increasing to 0.9% from 0.6% the previous [...]
Last Week: Fortunately we don’t need to repeat the repeat of “Rally Interrupted”, as the market posted its best performance since November 2018 as the S&P 500 jumped 3.2% and the Nasdaq composite surged 4%. As is often the case, there was good, bad, and ugly news for equities during the week. The Good: Our fundamental belief is that stock prices are determined in the long run by a combination of [...]
Last Week:I could just repost last week’s commentary and just change the specific numbers as the storyline was essentially a rerun. In fact, I will:The stock market party was disrupted as the Coronavirus upset the apple cart. Corporate earnings reports were strong and interest rates moved lower, but the S&P 500 declined 1.03% 2.12% and the Russell 2000 fell 2.2% 2.89%. It was the biggest one-week drop in the market since August, [...]