Last Week: Mr. Market: I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Confused Investor: Yes, Sir. Mr. Market: Are you listening? Confused Investor: Yes, I am. Mr. Market: Vaccine. Confused Investor: Exactly how do you mean? Mr. Market: There’s a great future once we have a COVID-19 vaccine. Until then, be careful and don’t do anything irrational (fade to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson”). (Reference: “One-word, Plastics, [...]
Last Week: On Monday the market opened sharply lower, but reversed course after the Fed expanded its asset purchasing to include corporate bonds. Optimism over the Fed Put (let’s have a contest to come up with a catchier name) and a significantly better than expected surge in U.S. retail sales drove prices higher on Tuesday. Wednesday was a welcome quiet day in the market, but the increase in COVID-19 cases and [...]
Last Week: We concluded our June 8th commentary with “Perhaps the glass is half full?” noting the surprising strong jobs report and the 43% bounce in the S&P 500 from its March 23 lows. On Monday the S&P 500 broke even for the year, and the Nasdaq Composite hit a record high. The mood shifted towards the middle of the week, with a nearly 7% decline on Thursday. A Friday afternoon [...]
Last Week: It is an occupational hazard of the investment advisory business that we are often asked whether the stock market is rational (always an uncomfortable question, but as Hyman Roth said “this is the business we’ve chosen”). The recent disconnect between the nightly news and the stock market table has never been more evident during my 37 years in this industry. The S&P 500 has now surged 43% since bottoming [...]
Last Week: The S&P 500 gained another 3.01%, with the most beaten-up economically sensitive companies outperforming. The yield on the Ten-Year Treasury dropped one basis point to 0.65%, while the Dollar declined 1.5%. Most of the holiday -shortened week’s gains came Tuesday morning following good news that morning from multiple vaccine programs. Meanwhile the U.S. COVID-19 death toll crossed over 100,000. It is safe to say that the market will be [...]