Never-Ending Rally Back on Track Despite the scary headlines, the “Fear Index” continues to falter. We concluded last week’s commentary noting that “U.S. stock futures followed the global markets lower over the weekend, and the “Fear Index” (VIX) jumped 6% going into...
Last Week: Whereas the major headline indexes set record highs again on Monday, the undertone of the market continues to soften, with declining issues increasingly outnumbering advancing issues. In fact, excluding the Fab FAANG Five (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix,...
Last Week: Early in the week, the market was singing “Mama Mia, here I go again!”, as COVID-19 resurfaced. Those fears were particularly apparent on Thursday when Japan declared a state of emergency and announced there would be no spectators at the Summer Olympics. On...
Last Week: We hope that everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend. One highlight at North Star was watching Joey Chestnut break his own world record at the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4th after devouring his 76th hot dog and bun in front of a packed...
Last Week: What a difference a weekend makes. The selling pressure from the previous Friday vanished into thin air, and a bounce-back rally kicked in on Monday morning that continued throughout the week. The S&P 500 closed Friday at another record high, posting...
Last Week: Chairman of the Federal Reserve is near the top of my list of extraordinary stressful jobs that I would hate to have. Currently, it would fall somewhere between a war-zone surgeon and an undercover narcotics officer on the Chicago Police Department. Poor...
Last Week: Since the end of April when Fed Chair Jerome Powell dismissed inflation pressures as being temporary, “transitory” has become the new bullish buzzword for the stock and bond markets. The 5% year-over-year increase in the consumer price index reported on...
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...