Starting from Hero, Got Nothing to Lose Tracy Chapman’s return to the stage to perform her 1988 song “Fast Car” made major Grammy headlines this week. Given the splash of the entire awards show, some […]
In the Playoffs Green Bay Packer fans are still riding the high of last weekend’s wild card win over the Dallas Cowboys, and rightfully so as the Pack became the only #7 seed to ever […]
Workhorse As we near the end of the year, only a few critical economic releases remain. With headline CPI inflation having cooled to 3.2% from 6.5% last December, investor attention has started to shift to […]
Going Once, Going Twice At first glance, the topic of this week’s blog may sound dry and like something that’s only interesting to economists or professors. But Treasury auctions have turned into quite a hot topic lately. […]
Done and Dusted At least that’s what the market thinks when it comes to Fed hikes… and the result has been a blistering rally with the Nasdaq Composite up more than 8% since October 26th, […]
Nightmare on Rate Street It’s been hard to escape the headlines about mortgage rates hitting 8%, and even harder to escape conversations about the housing market, regardless of whether or not you’re actively looking to […]
Put Me In, Coach Everybody loves an underdog, right? Or that player who sat the bench all season, who comes in during the playoffs, and has the game of their life? I know I do. […]
Wicked Witch of the Spread Oh my. Long-term Treasurys have had a rough autumn so far — the 10-year yield has risen roughly 70 basis points since the end of August and an ETF representing […]
Paper Cuts The most recent peak in the S&P 500 occurred on July 31 at a closing level of 4,588. The index has fallen roughly 7% since then. This pullback has been orderly and perhaps […]
Can’t Hurry Doves Before this Fed meeting, the market had priced in a zero percent chance of an interest rate hike in September, and the market was right, rates remained unchanged. This was also one […]
Economic data such as retail sales, consumer spending, and business inventories pointed to robust growth last month, and inflation data continued to look promising. In a sign of shifting views on the trajectory of the […]
Caught in a Riptide It’s been a while since international topics made regular headline appearances, but that might be changing. For the last year and a half, it seemed as though the only thing investors […]
On the Margin Q2 earnings season is 93% complete as of the time of writing with an earnings per share (EPS) growth rate of -5.2% y/y, while revenue growth is at 0.1% y/y. This will […]
Can You Take Me High Enough? Those are lyrics from a song by the Damn Yankees, a group I know zero other songs from, but which makes me think about all the Yankees fans who […]
Too Early or Too Wrong? It’s no secret that bears have found themselves on the wrong side of the market — and in many ways, the economy — so far this year. I count myself […]
Back in the Hike Life The Federal Open Market Committee resumed rate hikes after a pause in June and raised the target rate by 25 basis points to an upper bound of 5.5%. This now […]
In a month where growth data came in strong & inflation data came in cool, the Federal Reserve decided to hike rates and reiterated that future decisions will depend on the totality of the data. […]
This or That? That’s how the lyrics of a 1991 hip hop song called, “The Choice is Yours” start off — and although the rest of the song has no relation to investing, the words […]
Going Halfsies The second half of 2023 is underway, and another earnings season is fast approaching. The first half seems to have flown by, despite a tumultuous spring and regional bank crisis, and many investors […]
The Federal Reserve decided not to hike rates at the June FOMC meeting, after hiking at every meeting since Jan 2022, though they indicated that two more hikes were expected by year-end. Resilient economic data […]
All Rise As we approach the midpoint of the year, and after a strong rally in parts of the market, an exploration of where things currently sit is warranted. After all, first we have to […]
Battery Low It’s not new news that the Energy sector has had a rough go of it in 2023 — it’s currently the worst performing sector in the S&P with a -7.6% YTD return. Nor […]
Globetrotting There’s been a decent amount of chatter lately about international economies, markets, and all of the possible effects they could have on U.S. markets. There’s been much less chatter about whether or not international […]
Skinny Love For anyone not familiar with the band Bon Iver, let this be your introduction. The lead singer, Justin Vernon, was born in a small town in Wisconsin called Eau Claire. (Coincidentally, my dad […]
Supercore to the Rescue Each mini-milestone in the fight against inflation has the power to move markets in the short-term, but it’s the enduring trend that matters. One of the newer metrics that’s reported each […]
Hold for a Pause I’ll resist the urge to declare, “That’s all folks,” because we never can be sure — but it sounded to me like this was the last rate hike. In a widely […]
Starry-Eyed Surprise The theme this week is a tough one to figure out, so I’ll spell it out — these are all titles of songs that were hits in 2002. As we work our way […]
Whistle While You Wait Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Sentiment is bearish. Even some of the most bullish voices have turned down the volume. Positioning on speculative S&P 500 futures contracts is the […]
Seeping Out of the Balloon The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data showed a cooling in the headline number to 5.0% y/y from last month’s 6.0% reading. That’s a good sign inflation is moderating by […]
Livin’ on a Prayer The next stop on the market news train is Q1 earnings season, which begins in earnest next week, and the industry group kicking it off is…wait for it…banks. All eyes and […]