Expect the Unexpected Hard to believe we’re already at the end of the first quarter, but perhaps less hard to believe that there have been some surprises since Jan 1st…isn’t that always the case? It’s […]
Bad Moon Rising Last week’s events surrounding Silicon Valley Bank & Signature Bank, just to name a couple, served as a painful reminder of how quickly things can change, particularly when fear ripples across markets. […]
Chutes and Ladders With Chairman Powell’s testimony marking another message of “data dependency,” I can’t help but feel like every data point either sends the market down a chute or helps it climb a tiny […]
Get Shorty My first job out of college was as a trader for a trust company, in a department called automated cash management. That meant I traded sweep accounts and put money into, or took […]
Splitsville This may be one of the more short-term oriented posts I’ll write, but we’re in an era of short attention spans and a market walk that is measured in weeks, not quarters. Gotta give […]
Same Same, but Different Different This week’s big news story was, yet again, about inflation. January headline CPI came in above expectations but slightly below December. Meanwhile the month-over-month numbers were bang-on expectations. In my […]
The Future Is Further Away Recently in a CNBC interview, I admitted what I’ve gotten wrong so far in 2023 is that I thought it would be more obvious by now that an economic contraction […]
Close, But No Cigar In its first statement of 2023, the Federal Reserve raised its target policy rate by 25 basis points (bps) to an upper bound of 4.75%. This move was again widely anticipated […]
Walks Like a Duck, Quacks Like a Duck In recent weeks, due in large part to a market rally that kicked off the year, the idea of a “soft landing” has grown in popularity. […]
Much Ado About China Although China is rarely noticeably absent from headlines, its return to being top of mind has been feverishly fierce in recent weeks. And although Shakespeare has nothing to do with […]
Check Engine Soon That’s the dashboard light no one likes to see. Occasionally it’s a simple malfunction and no big deal, but other times it’s a more ominous sign. The check engine light came […]
Start Me Up Well, we certainly had ourselves a scary little Christmas, with the S&P ending down 6% for December, after the much hoped for year-end rally never materialized. But now we’re off to […]
A new year is supposed to be a time of fresh starts, enthusiasm for what’s to come, and resolutions to do something different. But starting something new suggests that we’ve recently finished something old. […]
Let it Slow, Let it Slow, Let it Slow Last December, I wrote a column about the Fed’s final statement of 2021 with a section titled, “Hawk! The Herald Angels Sing,” and it’s remarkable […]
It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Contrast Happy December, everyone. With the beginning of this merry month comes the time of year when I get to title all of my notes as Christmas […]
Spend Game It’s mid-November, which means we’re about to embark on the beloved holiday season. For most, the holidays mean eating, drinking and being merry. But, for investors, the holiday season means gauging the […]
Check on Your Tech No matter which way you slice or dice it, Technology stocks have had a tough go in this environment. Since the peak in the Nasdaq (the most tech-heavy of major […]
Slow Your Roll It seems that every Fed meeting this year has felt like the most important Fed meeting. Today was no exception (although we’ll likely say the same in December). The Federal Open Market Committee […]
By now, we’re desensitized enough to the word “recession” that the mention of it doesn’t send us into a tailspin. The current probability of a U.S. recession in the next 12 mos is 60% […]
A Breadth of Fresh Air? After suffering a painful September (S&P 500 -9.3%), October’s month-to-date performance of +3.1% feels pretty spectacular. At the time of this writing, the S&P strung together three days in a […]
How Would You Like that Cooked? The Federal Reserve’s move to increase the Fed Funds Rate (FFR) by another 75 basis points to an upper bound of 3.25% was widely anticipated and what the […]
Tough Love This week’s CPI report served up tough love for both bulls and hopeful doves. The rally that took us back above 4,000 on the S&P 500 was put to a painful end […]
Still Between the Uprights In celebration of the start to the NFL’s regular season this week, please humor my football analogies and shameless plug for the Green Bay Packers…#gopackgo (that was it, that’s the […]
Asset returns were broadly negative during the seasonally low volume month of August. The Federal Reserve reiterated its commitment to fighting inflation and restoring price stability, despite the economic pain it may bring. Interest […]
Separate Ways, Worlds Apart For many months, we have focused almost unilaterally on the path of tightening by the Federal Reserve, and what the next leg of that journey may look like. The concern […]
We’re at a point in the economic cycle where depending on your opinion of whether we’re headed for a serious downturn or not, you can find the data to support your argument. For every […]
Running of the Bulls Bullish sentiment was the star of the show yesterday as year-over-year July CPI came in at 8.5% — below estimates and below June’s hottest read of the cycle yet at […]
Returns were positive across most asset classes in July, a welcome development after a tough June. Interest rates declined broadly on fears of a downturn, despite job growth remaining strong and an acceleration in […]
The Earnings Engine that Could With roughly 65% of S&P 500 companies having now reported their Q2 results, the verdict is nearly in and earnings season hasn’t been as terrible as feared. It certainly […]
Hot Hike Summer It’s hard to believe we’re only four hikes and just over four months into this hiking cycle. The Federal Open Market Committee raised its target policy rate by another 75 basis […]