Gaining Currency
January 19, 2023 Good morning, Yesterday’s reports on retail sales and industrial production, which followed weak ISM (Institute of Supply Management) reports for manufacturing and services a few days ago, suggest the economy has taken another step toward recession. In response, bond yields plummeted yesterday (yields down, prices up for bonds), as did U.S. stock […]
Surprisingly Strong
January 17, 2023 Good morning, It looks to be a quiet start to the holiday-shortened week, with a lot of investor attention directed to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. On the home front, we did get more bank earnings this morning. Goldman Sachs (GS) came in light and is down -1.5% pre-market open […]
December 2022 Monthly Letter
To the very end, Take-No-Prisoners was the past year’s battle cry from global markets. Arguably the most painful move in markets over the past year has been the sharp decline in government bond prices (and its reciprocal rise in yields). Investors around the world know that stocks can provide a bumpy ride but the unusually […]
A Lot
January 11, 2023 Good morning, My apologies in advance, this morning’s note is unusually packed. Just a coincidence of time, but as always, please call me with any questions whatsoever. Jeffrey Gundlach (DoubleLine) conducted his annual Just Markets webinar last night. While he is an extraordinary fixed income manager, Just Markets is the one time […]
No Longer Untethered
January 9, 2023 Good morning, Friday’s market performance was impressive for both stocks and bonds, with most major equity indices moving up by more than +2% and bond yields declining by 16 bps or more across the entire treasury curve (full breadth of maturities). While the headline number of Friday’s December Employment Data was higher […]
Uneasy
January 5, 2023 Good morning, It is Morning Note Thursday due to the holiday-shortened week. Back to M-W-F as usual next week. Overnight price action has seen a modest reversal of some of this week’s trends in global markets. Yields are up in Treasuries after a rather dramatic decline in longer duration issues earlier this […]
The New Year
January 3, 2022 Good morning, Happy and Healthy New Year wishes to all, and welcome back. Given the long break, let’s do a quick review of the S&P 500 Index (SPX) last year in bold strokes and then look ahead. A year ago tomorrow, the SPX set its all-time high at 4818. On October […]
Yesterday’s Take-Away: Recession More Likely
December 19, 2022 Good morning, With the major market events of the month now largely behind us, expect financial markets to now shift into holiday mode. Let’s give the current rally the benefit of the doubt and a chance to muster a reasonably common Santa Claus rally over the next two weeks. However, I’m beginning […]
Yesterday’s Take-Away: Recession More Likely
Good morning, Yesterday’s +50 bps rate hike by the Fed and its slightly higher terminal rate expectation (5.0% to 5.1%) for next year was not a real surprise to anyone. The S&P 500 was off -.60% on the day, likely reflecting some disappointment that the Fed was not a little nicer (less hawkish) when talking […]
A Good Number
December 13, 2022 Good morning, With apologies, I was off by a day yesterday. The much-anticipated CPI comes out today and the Fed’s meeting decision is tomorrow. So, today is a big day (part 1). The equity market is anything but quiet ahead of this morning’s number. Yesterday’s rally (S&P up +1.43%) continued overnight and […]
Just A Little PPI Fuss
December 9, 2022 Good morning, The light eco-data week that I suggested might translate into a quiet market week this week was clearly wrong. The light data part was right, but the S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and Russell 2000 are down, so far this week, -2.64%, -3.30%, and -3.92%, respectively. International Indexes are off too, […]
November 2022 Monthly Letter
For November, equity markets continued their recovery from October’s lows. The U.S. market in S&P 500 terms (+5.59%), was easily beaten by both the International Developed market and Emerging market Indexes (+11.28% and +14.85%, respectively) for the month. International Indexes are not as heavily exposed to technology as the U.S. indexes, and technology lagged all […]