Just As They Are Now
September 28, 2022 Good morning, Picking up this morning where we left off in Monday’s Morning Note, it appears the market has raced down to its June lows (in S&P 500 Index terms). In the past six days alone, the Index is down -6.5%, the worst span since February 2020 and the beginning of Covid. […]
Forewarned is Forearmed
September 26, 2022 Good morning, In last month’s Monthly Letter, reprinted in these Morning Notes on 9/8, I suggested that the June lows on the S&P 500 Index, then about -7% away from existing levels , would likely be tested. Significant lows (June’s was -24.5% from the January high, which is significant enough), tend to […]
More Discounting Needed
September 23, 2022 Good morning, The notion that the market might have been properly discounting the Feds action and comments coming out of their FOMC meeting Wednesday afternoon was plainly wrong. The Fed did raise rates by +75 bps as expected, but it was the commentary after the rate hike that was the surprise, which began […]
Getting The Discount Right
September 21, 2022 Good morning, It is finally Fed Day and in a few hours (~2:15 pm EDT), the Federal Reserve will have told us by how much it is raising interest rates and will have hopefully provided a much clearer picture on how long it expects to keep rates high. Risk of recession will […]
Lows In Sight For Testing
September 19, 2022 Good morning, U.S. equity futures are off almost -1% this morning premarket as investors await Wednesday’s Fed meeting results, expected to be another +75 basis points rate hike. This is after after equities notched their worst week last week (-4.77% on the S&P 500) since hitting this year’s low in June. Speaking […]
Reader’s Digest Friday
September 16, 2022 Good morning, Markets look less than rosy this morning. FedEx shares are down >20% premarket since it pulled its fiscal 2023 earnings forecast on very bleak comments last night. In addition to Amazon and UPS domestically, the FedEx news has weighed heavily on global economies as well. Futures are off about one […]
Two Steps Forward … Two Steps Back
September 14, 2022 Good morning, Yesterday’s higher/hotter than expected CPI (Consumer Price Index) number, indicating higher inflation than expected, produced the strongest one-day rout in the equity market in over two years (Covid’s arrival in 2020). Yesterday, the S&P Index was down -4.32%. In Monday’s Morning Note, it was suggested that an improving inflation picture […]
Is Inflation Becoming Yesterday’s Battle?
September 12, 2022 Good morning, After 3 consecutive weeks of sheer punishment for the equity market following the Jackson Hole speech by Chair Powell in August, sellers took a break last week and the S&P 500 Index rebounded +3.6%. Maybe last week’s rebound wasn’t just seller’s fatigue. About two months ago, the economics group at […]
Morning Note
September 8, 2022 The price of oil has settled down this morning following its -7% decline yesterday. It was yesterday’s drop in the price of crude that finally provided some relief to stocks and bonds on the day. Futures are off a tick this morning on a lighter than expected U.S. Initial Jobless Claims number, […]
August 2022 Monthly Letter
The U.S. Central Bank spent most of the first half of August furiously messaging markets that any dovish interpretation of their recent (July 27) FOMC meeting would be a MIS-interpretation. For the first half of August, investors didn’t seem to care what the Fed was messaging – the June-July rally marched onward and upward. Then, […]
The Three R’s
September 7, 2022 Good morning, In S&P 500 Index terms, in round numbers, the market fell 24% from its all-time high in January of this year to its recent low in June. There were two relief rallies during that six-month period that failed to arrest the selling that resulted in the worst first half of […]
Is It September Already? Ugh!
August 31, 2022 Good morning, It sure is hard to find a Bull – anywhere. While such extreme sentiment is not enough of a reason to buy, it does suggest we are probably not facing another waterfall decline as we head into September – the worst performing month historically, and the only month showing negative […]