Human Nature
August 20, 2021 Good morning, It has always been fascinating to me to see an entire market behave as a single normal person might under a particular set of circumstances. Wednesday afternoon’s sell-off was a good example of what is to me a phenomena. Educators will tell you that students often don’t hear a repeated […]
Steady As She Goes
August 18, 2021 Good morning, So far this week, market action has not been as quiet as last week with a couple of 1% probes lower each morning on the major equity indices. However both probes lower this week have been met by buyers with Monday’s mid-day losses completely erased by the close and yesterday’s […]
Vacationing Market
August 16, 2021 Good morning, “Welcome back!” – thank you, it was lovely and relaxing vacation. Special thanks go to Mr. Market however, who delivered a very quiet week in both amplitude and price action. Perhaps my dreaded market crash/vacation ratio will normalize going forward – time will tell. The S&P 500 index (SPX) and […]
Trust But Verified
June 30, 2021 Good morning, The common thread running through recent Morning Notes has been that despite stretched valuations, there may be more time left for the bulls – basically so far, so good, for now. Recall the third leg of the market analysis 3-legged stool, the first two being the Tape and the Fed. […]
Again With The For Now …
June 28, 2021 Good morning, Markets are quiet leading into the open this morning, and that theme may last all week. Month/quarter end comes Wednesday but rebalancing flows should be relatively modest. Friday sees the release of June’s payroll figures and while recent monthly figures have looked like something out of a random number generator, […]
For Now
June 24, 2021 Good morning, Happy Friday! That sentiment rings true for Bulls, and for fully invested Bears, as markets have quickly snapped back from last week’s post-Fed meeting sell-off. So far this week, major U.S. equity indexes are up about 2.5%, twice that for U.S. small caps and half that for international developed and […]
Veiled War
June 23, 2021 Good morning, It feels like the market tumult from last week’s Fed meeting has largely past. The S&P 500 Index sits this morning almost exactly where it sat last Wednesday morning before the Fed’s announcement. However, below the seemingly placid surface of the broad market indexes, there is war going on between […]
Still a Friendly Trend
June 21, 2021 Good morning, One tries not to look back much but that said, last week was brutal. Stocks fell for the fourth straight day on Friday and the S&P 500 posted its worst week since February (-1.91%). Friday was the worst of it (-1.31%) and there’s no telling how much of the day’s […]
Those Witches
June 18, 2021 Good morning, The much ado about nothing comment here Wednesday morning didn’t look very good that afternoon when Fed Chair Powell talked of rate hikes and markets began to swing wildly toward risk-off. And yet, here we are 36hrs later and bond yields are lower (lower, not a misprint), than they were […]
Looking For Doves Today
June 16, 2021 Good morning, Today’s superpower summit meeting in Geneva between Biden and Putin is fortunately leading today’s news cycle. The main event today for markets globally is Fed Chair Powell’s 2pm-ish ET news conference following today’s June Fed Meeting. This Fed meeting has been well overcovered already – the Geneva distraction is a […]
Interesting Theatre
June 14, 2021 Good morning, Markets in almost all asset categories are fairly quiet this morning (except for Gold (-1.5%) which is probably just reacting late to Friday’s spike in real yields and the dollar). It makes sense that most assets are starting the week somewhat circumspect. When have we seen a massive addition to […]
Risk Up – Not The Bear Market Kind
June 11, 2021 Good morning, We have spent quite a few pixels lately on the subject of the average bull markets’ second year common characteristics – with increasing volatility and corrections and decreasing trajectories of gain. The current bull market’s first year was above average in just about every dimension including the use of “first […]