Skeptical
March 11, 2022 Good morning, Markets are looking up by about one percent this morning. Russian President Putin cited “positive movement” in talks with Ukraine, hours after saying he would bring in fighters from the Middle East. Despite extreme skepticism U.S equity futures jumped along with European stocks after the report of Putin’s comments, while crude […]
Best Not To Watch
March 9, 2022 Good morning, Markets remain highly volatile. The S&P fell 4% in a matter of hours Monday night into Tuesday morning this week on news of the U.S embargo on Russian oil. The S&P rallied over 3% on Biden’s embargo announcement – a common buy-the-news event. However, late afternoon news that at least […]
More To Clear
March 7, 2022 Good morning, Oil prices spiked last night on the prospect of a ban on Russian supplies which sent Futures down almost 2% to their overnight lows. Futures have pared the bulk of those losses, however they now stand just below “unchanged” from Friday’s close as the US markets prepare to open. Funding stress […]
February 2022 Monthly Letter
In the first half of February, investors played Can-You-Top-This, predicting how many rate hikes the Fed would make this year. In the second half of the month Russia erased any question of their intentions toward Ukraine. Two halves to make a pretty rotten whole month for markets. That makes two in a row for ’22. […]
Still Haven’t Cleared
March 4, 2022 Good morning, It’s hard to get up for the last employment data point before this month’s Fed meeting this morning, with Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and news headlines from Ukraine on fire. Besides, it appears as though the policy decision at this month’s Fed meeting is virtually etched in stone already. […]
Time
March 2, 2022 Good morning, I don’t have any new market insight for you this morning, nor have I been able to glean much from the many resources I tap each day. I suspect the reason is because markets are in waiting mode. They are waiting to see any 2nd and 3rd derivatives of last […]
By The:
February 28, 2022 Good morning, By the Hour: More and stiffer sanctions were levied on Russia and Putin over the weekend which brough another spike of uncertainty. Primarily around what the sanctions might mean for the global economy, particularly Europe’s economy. “Recession” led almost every overseas news headline this morning and Futures opened down 3% […]
Deep Sigh
February 25, 2022 Good morning, Following a fairly historic reversal yesterday — the S&P 500, for example, started the day down -2.6%, and then at mid-day rallied +4.2%, to close the session up +1.5% overall — can we assume the invasion is now in the market’s rear-view mirror? I doubt it, but I do think the […]
At Least Now We Know
February 24, 2022 Good morning, No, it isn’t a good morning. Putin’s Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of the Ukraine. Something the world has feared for weeks, but the majority believed wouldn’t ultimately happen. Putin’s has unveiled his near term goal – to demilitarize the Ukraine and force a regime change for the whole […]
Traders Taking A Shot This Morning
February 23, 2022 Good morning, By the time the market closed yesterday, the S&P 500 Index had lost another 1%, but it was much higher than that and much lower than that over the course of the day’s session. There is a lot of indecision out there. There is just too much uncertainty to discount, […]
Is 5.5% Enough?
February 22, 2022 Good morning, Last Monday, following a down -2%-ish week, we listed a half a dozen market concerns constituting a rather high wall of worry that the market would have to climb in order to resume its bullish tendencies. We postulated that only bad news could possibly be good news provided the market […]
Until It Clears
February 18, 2022 Good morning, Similar to Wednesday’s note, the only thing the market is focusing on is the increasing uncertainty going on in the Ukraine. Until that clears trading is just noise, and I don’t think any other market commentary is of much value. Hope you have a good holiday weekend. Be well,Mike