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...