Daily State of the Markets
Time To Stay Alert
Good Monday morning and welcome back. It's the start of a new week as well as the semi-official start of the second half of the year, so let's get right to our objective review the key market models and indicators and see where things stand. To review, the primary goal of this weekly exer…
Uh, What He Meant To Say Is...
On Tuesday, the stock market experienced its biggest decline in a month (which isn't really saying much based on the lack of volatility seen since mid-May) on the back of a confluence of negative inputs. One of the primary issues that traders fretted over were comments made by Mario Dragh…
Apparently It Takes A Village
When a decline in the S&P 500 approaches -1%, I tend to sit up and take notice. Especially when the decline occurs during a period of low volatility and/or comes out of the blue. And generally speaking, when such a dip occurs, there is usually some sort of headline to cause traders to…
A Fool's Errand
As we entered calendar year 2017, hope reigned supreme. There was hope for tax reform, reduced legislation, and a plan to rebuild America's infrastructure. And with Republicans controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, getting the new administration's agenda implemented was…
Indicator Review: It's a Bull Market Until Proven Otherwise
Good Monday morning and welcome back. Since it's the start of a new week, let's get right to our objective review the key market models and indicators. To review, the primary goal of this weekly exercise is to remove any subjective notions and ensure that we stay in line with what "is" ha…
Are The Economic Surprise Indices Trying To Tell Us Something?
As the saying goes, "There are three kinds of lies. Lies. Damned lies. And statistics."
Experience has taught me that this is especially true in the investing game as I have seen countless analysts, columnists, and pundits over the years use whatever data they can dig up to prove …
The Real Inflation Problem
With Janet Yellen having raised the Fed Funds rate a fourth time last week to a target range of 1.0% - 1.25%, there is/has been an awful lot of talk about inflation. In fact, the current annualized level of inflation (~2%) is being used as justification for the Fed's plan to return r…
Additional Signs of Improvement
Good Monday morning and welcome back. Although the ECB and FOMC Meetings are over and rates have been increased in the U.S., the Fed remains a focal in the markets due to the fact that we have a full calendar of Fed-speak on tap for this week. For example, at 8:00 a.m this morning, Federa…
BlackRock: "Win More by Losing Less"
When interviewing investment managers, one of the most important things to understand is the manager's and/or the firm's bias. Make no mistake about it; most all managers have a "view of the world" (aka how the markets work) that will impact their approach to managing money. Thus, it is c…
Indicators Show Signs of Improvement, But...
Good Monday morning and welcome back. We made it through the ECB meeting, the UK election, and Comey's eye-opening testimony last week and well, the major indices are none the worse for wear. Next up is this week's Fed announcement (where Yellen's gang is expected to raise rates another 2…