Published January 13, 2023
Stocks have been moving higher. What began in Europe, spread to China, and is now beginning to show up elsewhere. Here are some charts displaying the shift in market tone in these areas. First up, a clear uptrend has formed over the past 3+ months in Europe. Fears of a natural gas shortage during the winter simply did not materialize. (more…)
Published July 22, 2022
The only consistent winner during this bearish stock market period has been the U.S. dollar. Commodities had a brilliant run (blue line below) but have fallen off substantially in recent weeks. Bonds have followed stocks into the cellar in a rare case of very high correlation between the two major asset classes. Only the U.S. dollar (green line below) has held up. (more…)
Published November 12, 2021
This week’s inflation numbers put a little (temporary?) scare in the markets. But the one-day jump in interest rates did not even offset the past two weeks’ worth of yield declines. (more…)
Published June 18, 2021
This year’s stock market has been all about rotation with money moving into value stocks and out of growth stocks. The narrative has been that rising inflation would push up interest rates. The hike in rates in turn raises the denominator of the classic stock price valuation (e.g. earnings/interest rates) which devalues high-flying growth stocks. The beneficiaries of this narrative have been cyclical sectors like materials, industrials, and energy. This week that narrative took a beating. (more…)
Published June 11, 2021
This week’s inflation report generated plenty of alarming headlines. As the chart below shows, inflation hit its highest point since, well, the end of the last economic crisis. Which points to one of the reasons why the alarming headlines are misleading. (more…)
Published February 5, 2021
That’s right folks, any market: stocks, bonds, commodities, milk, diapers, et al. is ONLY about supply and demand. Sure, we try to make ourselves feel better by assigning formulas and trying to figure out some “fair value” based on historical data. But it’s a complete wild west guess, right? Take the price-earnings ratio, so frequently used to peg the stock market as being “expensive” or “cheap”. This ratio has run anywhere from 10 to 100, settling in a typical range of 15-20 or so. Still, it’s a bell(ish) curve with a very wide range of possible values. That typical range does not say anything about the investing or economic environment of the times. (more…)
Published December 18, 2020
We recently noted the strength of non-U.S. stock markets. One of the primary reasons for that strength has been currency-related. The U.S. dollar, often a safe haven in times of stress, has been declining as investors focus on a recovery in global economies in 2021. (more…)
Published November 27, 2020
Our recent articles have described the market’s sudden shift toward value/cyclical market sectors, like energy and financials, and away from the prior market leaders, namely the tech/consumer FANGMA stocks (e.g. FANGMA = Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, Apple). The article below from Delta Research makes the case for a similar shift in market leadership toward non-U.S. markets. (more…)
Published June 21, 2019
This week, we offer not a single particular point, but instead a couple of market observations. (more…)