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 […]
Will Interest Rates Stay Higher for Longer?
By John Lau May 1, 2024 – One of the narratives that has fueled the rally in risk assets since the October 2023 lows is the expectation for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. The only issue here is that most recent statistics surrounding inflation, employment, and broader business activity continue to indicate a […]
March 2024 Monthly Letter
The following is your March 2024 Robertson Stephens Wealth Management, LLC Monthly Performance Report. As you can see below, March put a nice closing touch on the first quarter of the year (YTD column). As mentioned, the prevailing sentiment among market strategists is now one of surprise. It was the rare strategist (none that I […]
Just A Little Turbulence
April 4, 2024 Good morning, The equity market has experienced a little turbulence over the past few days, down ~ 1% from its highs since last week. It would appear that after two months of ignoring spiking yields in the bond market, (the UST-10yr, for example, has moved from 3.80% to 4.37%), equities may care […]
Grinding Higher
April 1, 2024 Good morning, Welcome to Q2. The overwhelming feeling this morning for investors, and particularly for professional market strategists, is one of surprise. Despite the unusually wide range of market expectations among the “Year Ahead” forecasts last December, I do not recall a single outlier that expected a gain of over 10% by the S&P […]
A Growing Concern For The Fed Chairperson
March 25, 2024 Good morning, As mentioned, the Fed certainly carried the week last week, by announcing Wednesday afternoon that it was leaving its dot-plot unchanged at 3 rate cuts before year-end, and surprising markets with its overall dovish tone. After two flat weeks in a row, the S&P 500 jumped up +2.29% last week. […]
The Contrarian’s Axiom
March 21, 2024 Good morning, We have been vividly reminded that “Markets will do what surprises the most” so far this week. It is the contrarian’s axiom. Recall, all the chatter through financial news channels that this week’s AI Conference would eclipse yesterday’s Fed Meeting in terms of market impact. Well, the AI Conference was […]
The Problem with Productivity
April 2, 2024 By Jeanette Garretty, Chief Economist Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker. –Paul Krugman, The Age of Diminishing Expectations (1994) Every five or six […]