Daily State of the Markets
Worst Case Off The Table
Despite Monday's dance to the downside on the back of Trump talking openly about firing Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, the S&P 500 enjoyed a pretty good week. If my calculator is correct, the venerable blue-chip index sports a gain of +4.6% for the week of April 21 while the much-maligne…
Big Questions Remain
Investors can't be blamed for feeling a little better about things these days. Especially when compared with where the S&P 500 was two short weeks ago. If my calculator is correct, the venerable blue-chip index is up +9.3% from the intraday panic low seen on April 7th. And while the m…
Changing The Playbook
One of the most important lessons I've learned over my 38 years of managing people's money for a living is Wall Street traders love their historical analogs. As such, we've developed various playbooks to track what traders typically do given various market conditions.
For the past…
Assuming The Worst
Investors - especially those managing big hedge funds and/or the books of Wall Street banks - look to be assuming the worst right now. Assuming the worst about tariffs. The worst about economic growth. The worst about inflation. And in turn, the worst about earnings. So much worry, so lit…
The Retest is On
The past week has been a bit of a roller coaster ride in terms of investor emotions. The week began with hope as stocks rallied furiously on Monday in response to the White House suggesting the coming tariffs might be less harsh than market participants had expected. However, by the time …
Where Do We Go From Here?
After a ferocious decline that pushed the S&P 500 down 10% in almost record time (the only other time in recent history where the market went down at this pace was the COVID Crash in 2020) the question of the day is, what's next? I.E. Where do we go from here?
As I wrote last …
Fear and Loathing (And Of Course, Leverage)
With the S&P 500 having hit the -10% mark this week, there can be little argument that the stock market is officially in correction mode. As such, the question of the day is whether the current corrective phase is about over - or - will morph into a bear market.
In my experien…
Staying Seated on Bull Train For Now
With the election less than 24 hours away, it is safe to say that investors of all shapes and sizes are likely sitting on their hands today. As such, I thought this might be a good opportunity to take a step back and look at the big picture, macro backdrop.
The Election is…
The Time Has Come
The phrase of the day on this fine summer Friday isn't from any of the politicians seeking our attention 24/7 but rather Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Giving a highly anticipated speech at the annual Fed confab in Jackson Hole, Mr. Powell told us, "The time has come."
While the mark…