Inflationary Data vs. Deflationary Outlook The S&P 500 turned sharply lower, wiping out the previous week’s 3.7% gain plus another 1%, with a loss of 4.8% for the five-day session. The Nasdaq fared even worse, suffering a 5.5% decline, the Russell 2000 shed 4.5%,...
Weathering the Storm U.S. stocks snapped a three-week losing streak as the selling pressure abated and buyers, likely either bargain-hunting investors or short-covering traders, emerged. The market rose in three of the four sessions with only the oil and gas sector...
Consensus Pessimism Drives Our Optimism We are beginning to embrace the saying that “no news is good news” since the market has been reacting negatively to both good news and bad news. This suggests a pessimistic consensus among financial markets participants, and any...
Waiting on Wyoming The sell-off that started the previous Friday continued Monday, as concerns deepened over a more hawkish tone from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on the upcoming Friday at Jackson Hole. The market treaded water on very low volume Tuesday and...
Walmart Sales Up, Gas Prices Down The stock market rally ran out of steam, as the S&P dropped 1.2%, the Nasdaq declined 2.6%, and the Russell 2000 slid 2.9%. Most of the damage was on Friday, without any specific news to account for the mood swing. Of note, the...
The Rally Continues It’s getting better all the time Better (inflation) Better (consumer sentiment) Better (corporate earnings) Stocks rallied for the fourth straight week, with the S&P gaining 3.2%, the Nasdaq advancing 3.1%,and the Russell 2000 surging 4.9%. The...
An Economy Off Life-Support After much reflection we have come up with the novel concept that good news is actually good news. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 528,000 jobs in July, more than twice as high as expected, and the...
A Shift Back to Dovish Against the backdrop of the Fed raising rates and a shrinking GDP, the stock market finished July with a flourish as the S&P 500 rallied 4.5%, the Nasdaq gained 4.7%, and the Russell 2000 advanced 4.3%. The Oil and Gas sector was the...
Mixed Picture We finally got a break from having the market narrative being dominated by record inflation, the never-ending pandemic, experimental monetary policy, and the tragic war in Ukraine. Instead, the focus was on corporate earnings, with those companies who...
Deep in Oversold Territory There is probably no better analogy for recent financial markets activity than the summertime-classic game of tug-of-war. The main players in this summer picnic classic are: (1) inflation reports and employment reports suggesting robust...
Big Bad Fed The market rallied to kick off the back half of 2022, particularly for Tech stocks, as the key news releases comforted investors recession anxiety and their fear of the Big Bad Fed. The highly anticipated employment report showed that the U.S. economy...
Yesterday, a tragedy occurred in Highland Park, IL, the location of North Star’s suburban office. The North Star employees are safe. We want to extend our deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and those affected by this senseless act. As always, we pray...
During the period, the S&P 500 Total Return Index fell 16.10% for the quarter and is down 19.96% for the year. The Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Composite Index fell 2.93%% during this period and is down 7.48% for 2022. The 10Y finished the quarter at 2.97%, up from...
When Stocks Go Low… As is frequently the case in the stock market, just when it seems clearly to be the worst of times, suddenly it is the best of times. Against the bear market beat, the verse of impending recession, and the chorus of soaring inflation, the S&P...
All Eyes (Including Ours) on Gas Prices Perhaps the best way to describe the current market environment would be to edit the opening of Charles Dickens’ masterpiece “A Tale of Two Cities” by removing all the “best of times” references. "It was the worst of time…it was...
Steep and Cheap At 3pm ET on Thursday afternoon, apparently some traders gained conviction that the highly anticipated economic releases the following morning were going to paint a bleak picture. Unfortunately, that intuition proved correct, as the CPI report for May...
Let the QT Commence Rampant pessimism returned from its repose following the Memorial Day holiday, as the airwaves were bounteous with ominous proclamations from high-profile business and government celebrities. Most notably, the sound bite from J.P. Morgan's Jamie...
A Pause in Selling, a Bear Market Rally, or a New Bull Market? The dark bear-shaped clouds lifted and, in the sunshine, the recession-obsessed camp saw signs on economic resiliency and the inflation hawks viewed the silhouette of softening prices. The S&P, which...
Eric Kuby, Chief Investment Officer, will be interviewed on TD Ameritrade Network’s The Watch List hosted by Nicole Petallides. To hear North Star’s thoughts on market pessimism as well as our bargain stock picks, tune into the link below at 1:30 PM CT/2:30 PM ET....
Consumer Sentiment Crash It was no surprise to anyone watching the news over the last month that the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for May nosedived back to the lowest levels in eight-years, and approached the nadir reached in the financial crisis...
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