No Bounce With Big Week Ahead
May 2, 2022 Good morning, Clearly, I jumped the gun Friday, not waiting for the final day of the month performance before printing ugly numbers for April and the year. Friday’s one day performance made for a bad month all by itself. Added to what was already poor, April ended up being the worst month in […]
Rough Month
April 29, 2022 Good morning, April ends today; thank God! The first quarter of this year was horrible, one of the worst of its kind, ever. Then April comes along, and it was worse. Most of the major indexes were down in April more than they were for the whole first quarter. Bonds? – Fuggedaboudit, […]
Can’t Wait
April 27, 2022 Good morning, The sell-off in recent days has been as violent as it has been rapid. From last Thursday’s high to yesterday’s low, the S&P 500 plunged 7.5%. The drop has put the index within 1.5% of its February 24th intraday low, which came the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That […]
Steady Now
April 25, 2022 Good morning, Wow, that was a bit rough – Friday made for a bad week. The S&P 500 was off -2.77% Friday, it was down 2.75% for the week. Before Friday, one might have been impressed with the market action year-to-date, given all the bad news this year and the gloomy investor […]
Allocation Shift for Taxable Portfolios
April 22, 2022 Good morning, Equities were making some nice gains earlier this week on what appeared to be some solid earnings releases. However, this week’s gains were all given back yesterday as rates resumed their ascent. A seesaw few days – aka a trendless tape. Overnight, Asian equities passed the risk-off baton to European […]
Just Shrugged It Off!
April 20, 2022 Good morning, The headline news item this morning is Netflix earnings – they missed. It’s not every day that you see a $300 billion market-cap company lose over half its value in less than 6 months. It’s also interesting to see one of the FAANG growth favorites appears to have stopped growing, […]
Trendlessness?
April 18, 2022 Good morning, Let’s look at the 1yr chart of the S&P 500 Index and talk perspective today. The 14% decline in the first 2½ months is stark. But so is the 11% rally that closed out the quarter and left the Index off ~4 percent for the year at the start of […]
Patience Fraying
April 11, 2022 Good morning, Markets are on the move this morning, well before the U.S. exchanges get going. Most of the action is again in bond-land, the rise in yields has been relentless. The US 10yr, yielding under 2% only a month ago, jumped 8 more basis points overnight and put in a high […]
Up on the Western Front – Quiet in the East
April 8, 2022 Good morning, European equities rallied +1.8% in the early part of their last trading session of the week. They have drifted just off their daily peaks as the sun rises on our shores. Bonds are quiet for a change this morning. It looks to be a quiet Friday here, at least when […]
March 2022 Monthly Letter
While this is a cover letter to a monthly report, the month did end the first quarter and it was a quarter that bears mention. It was one for the record books. War. Inflation. The First U.S. Fed funds rate increase. The likely (typing with fingers crossed now) final act to U.S. Covid. Inverting yield […]
“Bite”
April 6, 2022 Good morning, Beginning yesterday morning and continuing right through the overnight trading session, bonds have been getting hammered (lower prices, rising yields) and consequently equities are looking a lot less resilient than they have over the past three weeks. The alarming 2’s-to-10’s inverted spread mentioned Monday has worked itself out of inversion […]
Breakfast: Inversion on Egg Shells
April 4, 2022 Good morning, After a bit of a “push” last week for the major equity market indexes – the S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000 were up +.08%, +.66% and +.68% respectively for the week – our investment posture remains the same. We’re giving the recent 3wk old rally the benefit of the […]