Classics
July 11, 2024 Good morning, The big market event of the week is this morning’s June CPI at 8:30 am EDT. The next biggest event of the week was Jerome Powell’s 2-day testimony in front of Congress yesterday and Tuesday. His testimony did not move markets at all, which he probably counts as a success. After […]
The Evidence That We Are At The Beginning Of One Is Growing
July 8, 2024 Good morning, Despite last week’s shortened trading week (3½ days vs 5) and tons of economic data, large-cap equity indices quietly scored another week of gains almost completely on the back of big tech. Bonds did well too (yields down, prices up), on softer-than-expected economic data – primarily June’s employment numbers on […]
June 2024 Monthly Letter
The following is your June 2024 Robertson Stephens Monthly Performance Report. For the month of June, the stock market continued to show a gradual upward trend for most of the major indices, led once again by the AI theme and the Magnificent 7 stocks (the 7 Mags were up +9.85% on average in June with […]
Happy Fourth
July 1, 2024 Good morning, Friday’s PCE data came in precisely where economists expected it would. Economists are getting pretty good at predicting PCE since CPI and PPI are big components of PCE. If economists continue to nail it, expect no market reaction to it in the future – just like Friday. Be well,Mike Disclosures […]
Trendlessness
June 27, 2024 Good morning, There isn’t much to mention about the markets this morning. They have been quiet so far this week; a state of trendlessness with no signal changes to support the bullish or bearish narratives. There was a correction in NVIDIA that looked like a possible beginning of an overdue breather for the […]
What Is Divergence, Anyway?
June 24, 2024 Good morning, Let’s diverge into the classroom a bit this morning. Last week, we talked about new highs on the major equity indices not being confirmed by new highs in secondary indicators (advances vs. declines known as breadth, volume indicators, highs vs. lows, rate of change or 2nd derivative of all these primary […]
Going According To Plan – So Far
June 20, 2024 Good morning, A few months ago, we laid out a framework for what we considered to be the high probability path for markets one-year forward. It included a constructive near-term (6mo) outlook for equities due to an overall bullish market message (balance of technical signal evidence) with worries of a recession longer […]
Time For A Break?
June 17, 2024 Good morning, While there’s been no shortage of headlines about the latest record highs on the S&P 500 (SPX) and NASDAQ, the highs have been less significant as a sign of market strength than as an influence on investor sentiment. When excessive optimism is the only market data signal accompanying new price […]
No Change in Short and Long Term Market Narratives
June 13, 2024 Good morning, With the benefit of some time overnight to lend a very eventful Wednesday some perspective, it is evident that the market placed greater weight on the better-than-expected key inflation report (May Consumer Price data, CPI) in the morning than the afternoon Fed announcement (which had a hawkish lean to it). Both stocks […]
May 2024 Monthly Letter
The following is your May 2024 Robertson Stephens Monthly Performance Report. May was a good month for returns from both stocks and bonds, and if you look at the chart below, it was, for many indices, the mirror image of April’s all-asset correction. At the margin, technology outperformed its April losses in May. Note tech’s positive return […]
Seesawing Data and Opinion
June 10, 2024 Good morning, Once again, on Friday, the data got in the way of a building market narrative. May’s employment report showed sizable job gains exceeding the highest estimate from economists – same for average hourly earnings. Stocks handled the data surprise well, while bonds fell hard and wiped out almost all the […]