Last Week: “The heat is on, it’s on (Wall and Main) street, the heat is on, on, on." The economy has been rebounding sharply, and with that rebound, there has been a surge in inflationary pressures and related concerns over interest rate increases. As such, the market...
Last Week: Equity markets ground higher, fueled by (1) good earnings from economy re-opening companies and from several residential real estate-related companies; (2) a benign bond market that seems comfortable with the Fed’s ‘inflation is transitory’ party line; (3)...
Last Week: In our previous commentary we highlighted the FOMC meeting minutes, noting that “investors will scour the transcript for any cracks in the Fed’s conviction to keep short-term rates near-zero for the foreseeable future.” The surprising dialogue about...
Last Week: Mr. Market, like Disneyland’s Mr. Toad, had a wild ride. Toad, borrowed from “The Wind in the Willows”, regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them abruptly. That sounds like a reasonably good description of most of the trading...
Last Week: The employment report for April released on Friday indicated that there were 266,000 new jobs added, versus the approximately one million that was forecasted. Additionally, March’s number was reduced by 246,000 jobs, suggesting that there are approximately...
Last Week: The Stock market seems to have become comfortably numb to good news, as equities essentially treaded water despite a plethora of good news from economic data, monetary policy, and corporate earnings. The S&P 500 reached another record high on Thursday...
To all of our new subscribers: welcome! Last Week: Corporate earnings reports and the economic releases both painted a rosy picture, but investors got a little prick in their portfolios from the thorny issue of how to pay for all the recent and proposed government...
Last Week: The U.S. economic data and corporate earnings reports clearly indicated a strengthening recovery, along with new signs of mounting inflationary pressures. Retail sales surged 9.8% in March compared to the prior month, its steepest increase since May last...
Last Week: Investors continued getting what they want, as well as what they need, despite some storm clouds forming on the horizon. Stocks rallied to close once again at record levels Friday, with the S&P 500 topping 4,100, as investors ignored concerns about...
Last Week: The S&P 500 crossed over the 4,000 threshold on April Fools’ Day to set another record, finishing up +1.14%. Small caps were not joking around, with the Russell 2000 gaining +1.46%, and the Tech sector pranked its detractors by bouncing +3.15%. Trading...