April 2024 Monthly Letter
The following is your April 2024 Robertson Stephens Monthly Performance Report. With the benefit of seeing the first 4 days of trading in May, I can suggest that April was simply a correction for stocks and bonds. By definition, a correction is a pause in the prevailing bullish or bearish market trend. In the current […]
A Big Data Week
May 13, 2024 Good morning, Last week, the S&P 500 Index (SPX) casually climbed +1.85% in what was a key-data-deprived week. This month’s key inflation data is on the docket this week with Tuesday’s Producer Price Index (PPI) and Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI). This is the first inflation data since the last Fed meeting, […]
Labor Cooling Was A Breadth of Fresh Air
May 6, 2024 Good morning, Last Friday morning’s cool, but not cold, April Nonfarm Payrolls report was a breadth of fresh air for stocks and bonds. Payrolls grew in April by the least in six months. The unemployment rate rounded up to 3.9%, the highest level since 2022. There seemed to be labor market coolness everywhere […]
Much Ado …
May 2, 2024 Good morning, In a week full of big market news events with some of the most important company earnings announcements, an FOMC meeting, and April’s employment numbers, yesterday’s Fed press conference following the FOMC meeting was the most widely anticipated event of them all. However, looking at the market’s reaction to Chair […]
Cognitive Dissonance? I Don’t Think So – Just Disconcerting
April 29, 2024 Good morning, You could hear the collective sigh of relief in most markets Friday morning as the PCE Price Index (Personal Consumption Expenditures) increased +0.3% in March, about the same as February, and matching the consensus estimate (most importantly). It was an all-clear sign, early Friday morning, for equities to price in Microsoft (MSFT) and […]
Sticky Here, There, and Everywhere
April 25, 2024 Good morning, We will assume this month’s steep sell-off is only a correction until the technical damage begins to invade the medium- and longer-term market indicators. Thus far, there has been plenty of technical damage from all the selling, but it has been contained in the short-term indicators. In fact, short-term sentiment […]
Yields Over Earnings
April 22, 2024 Good morning, For equities this morning, there isn’t much to add to last Thursday’s Morning Note, except that the pullback in prices has continued. The S&P 500 Index (SPX) was down -3.05% last week and broke the next threshold level of -5%. By definition, a “Correction” is >-5%. The SPX has now retreated -5.4% from […]
History’s Divergent Record On Pullbacks
April 18, 2024 Good morning, Finally, an equity market pullback. Almost on cue, as the 2nd quarter got underway and investors had been enjoying 5 months of historically low downside volatility, the S&P 500 Index (SPX) began its overdue pullback. It has not endured a -3% pullback (a minimum threshold by definition) since 10/27/2023 – […]
More Volatility Likely Ahead
April 15, 2024 Good morning, With Futures up ~0.6% in premarket trading this morning, it seems increasingly clear that Friday’s reversal in most asset trends (stocks sold off / bond yields declined) represented broad market risk reduction ahead of the widely-discussed Iranian attack. With the attack over, a partial snap-back of Friday’s outsized moves may be […]
Restrictive Rates Appear To Be Lingering For Longer
April 11, 2024 Good morning, “That sound you just heard was the door slamming on a June rate cut by the Fed” – 8:31am. Yesterday’s quote of the day, moments after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) headline data crossed the tape. The inflation data came in hotter than expected. Bond yields shot higher (up 20+ […]
Weak MN -It Happens
April 8, 2024 Good morning, Following another stunningly strong employment report on Friday morning, stocks rallied to recover most of the losses they had suffered earlier in the week, while bonds continued to fall (higher yields). On the week, the S&P 500 Index fell only -0.95%, the U.S. Treasury 10-yr yield rose 20 basis points from […]