Laundry List There has been a laundry list of factors that have heavily influenced the trends in the financial markets over the past few years. Topping that list would be the COVID-19 pandemic and related supply-chain disruptions, closely followed by the increasingly...
North Star's Premise Proven Investors finally got a taste of money, tasting much sweeter than wine, as rising corporate earnings and declining interest rates gave the markets a kiss. The bond market benefitted from slightly soft employment data, particularly...
Depressed Levels The market action was primarily driven by the horrific events in the Israel-Hamas war, with a mixed performance from stocks while investors sought safe-haven assets such as U.S. Treasury bonds and gold. Defense and Energy sector shares rallied,...
Balanced Signals The concept of bistable perception, in which observers perceive the same information in two different ways, might help explain the current state of the financial markets as well as the political landscape. We will leave the unstable domestic politics...
A Dedication to Mickey Lefton “As my memory restsBut never forgets what I lostWake me up when September ends.” Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong penned those lyrics inspired by the grief he felt over the death of his father when he was a young boy....
Congrats Fed, You Are Winning Whereas we would prefer to be discussing the resilient economy, with full employment and supply chain disruptions finally alleviating, instead, once again, it was Chairman Powell and the Fed dominating the narrative. Spoiler alert:...
Bears Took Over Through Thursday’s close, the financial markets displayed solid resilience despite the looming threat of an autoworkers strike and a slightly hot producer price index (PPI) reading. Surging energy prices were responsible for a monthly rise of 0.7% in...
Disruptive Outcomes The markets responded negatively both to the good news of resilient U.S. economic data and to the unsettling geopolitical news. On the domestic front, the Services PMI® registered at 54.5 percent, a 1.8-percentage point increase compared to the...
Slow Ride The simple yet classic lyrics from Foghat’s “Slow Ride” tune encapsulate the lukewarm economic news last week that buoyed equity markets: (1) job openings at the lowest level since March 2021; (2) a decline in consumer confidence; (3) tame inflation...
TINA Years Are Through Nvidia Inc (NVDA) had terrific earnings, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks in Jackson Hole were unremarkable, and the market yawned. Semiconductor and other AI stocks rallied early in the week, but sold off following Nvidia’s...
Positive Light Stocks and bonds fell for the week as a combination of strong U.S. economic data and challenges in China unnerved the financial markets. The healthy domestic economic data drove interest rates higher, though bond prices stabilized on Friday. The...
A Day Late & a Dollar Short The financial markets were in a “blue Moody” with stocks suffering early in the week following the rating agency’s downgrade on 10 regional banks, and bond prices slumping on Friday in response to a stronger-than-expected...
Wild Ride It was a volatile week that finished with equity market index losses after Fitch downgraded its U.S. credit rating below the top AAA level; this launched U.S. Treasury yields on a wild ride that somewhat ironically narrowed the 10-year versus 2-year...
Monetary Policy and Midpoints The stock market continued to move higher, fueled by economic data that clearly contradicted the doomsday narrative promoted by the inflation and recession fear mongers. The Fed still raised interest rates by another 25 basis points on...
A Case for the Consumer Last week, the equity markets rose supported by mounting evidence of disinflation and solid results from JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) and other large banks. The gains were muted by the release of the Fed’s March FOMC minutes on Wednesday and...
Wild Rush The 2023 bull stampede on Wall Street continued as the economic data and corporate earnings reports declawed those grumpy bears. All the major market averages finished higher, with the Nasdaq Composite climbing 4.3% to rack up a fourth straight week of...
Robust Rally A robust rally on Friday erased the losses from earlier in the week, with high-profile tech stocks leading the bounce. Netflix Inc (NFLX) surged 8.5% after gaining more subscribers than expected, and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) added more than 5% after Google...
Sugar Rush The stock market got a pre-Halloween sugar rush, with the S&P 500 3.9% higher, the Nasdaq showing a 2.2% gain, and the Russell 2000 jumping 6.0%. The rally from the previous Friday continued through Tuesday, but disappointing results from Alphabet and...
Pressure The stock market continued to be under selling pressure, as the S&P slid 1.6%, the Nasdaq dropped 3.1%, and the Russell 2000 shed 1.2%. Health care and Financials shares fared better thanks to solid earnings reports from several of the key components of...
Not So Hot Our previous commentary was titled “Bad News Bears”, but perhaps “Bad News Bulls” or “Good News Bears” would be a more appropriate description. Indeed, stock traders continued to obsess on future Fed rate hikes, with good news such as the strength in the...
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