Archive for the
‘Markets & Economy’ Category

As the month of April closed last week, Wall Street celebrated the S&P 500’s powerful 12.7% advance, the strongest monthly gain in 33 years. Whether that success points to continued gains in the short run, however, is open to question. Looking back, two even more profitable months saw slightly varied outcomes. The most profitable month, [...]

Two articles from The Wall Street Journal weekend edition struck me as particularly helpful to readers seeking insight into prospects for the pandemic, the economy and the investment markets. Relative to the coronavirus pandemic and its potential effect on the economy, let the authors Louise Radnofsky and Ben Cohen speak for themselves: There has always [...]

In just under two months, stock prices worldwide have plummeted from historic highs to bear market lows and have rocketed part way back up again. The coronavirus has infected nearly 2 million people, killing over 100,000, and shut down vast swaths of the world economy. In less than one month, our way of life has [...]

In our January Commentary, we noted that the Fed had dropped short-term interest rates in late-2019 in three distinct quarter point increments to the year-end level of 1.50-1.75%. As the coronavirus spread around the world in early-2020, the central bank cut interest rates on March 3 by half a percentage point, its biggest single cut [...]

Readers of our reports over the past few years know that we have described the condition facing investors as a bet. Older market veterans who have lived through a number of market cycles would tend to bet on what has always ultimately played out-- that the equity markets would eventually revert to their historically normal [...]

In my 52 years in the investment industry, I have never seen anything like the stock market activity of the last month. From its Feb 12 all-time high, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by more than 35% (about 10,500 points) to its Wednesday low, just below 19,000. That significant decline was the fastest in [...]

On Sunday evening of this week, the markets experienced a brief dip into negative yields for the 3-month US Treasury bill. Once again on Wednesday, bills with maturities from four weeks to three months were slightly negative. In other words, investors were willing to pay the US Treasury to hold their money for the next [...]

“Is the market going up just because of the Fed?” – asked of an investment strategist by a CNBC announcer. “No, the economy is incredibly strong.” This interchange took place immediately following the strategist’s prediction that the Fed will lower short-term interest rates in July by 25 basis points, possibly by 50. Even if illogical, [...]

For the past several years, we have been profiling the dilemma facing investors as a “bet” between: 1) Reliance on traditional investment fundamentals reverting to their long-term means, which has always ultimately proven successful; or 2) Reliance on central bankers continuing to prevent securities prices from a reversion to historic fundamental averages, the approach that [...]

Nothing very serious here. Just a few musings on the silliness of some of the nonstop commentary we hear on financial TV. Wall Street commentators have a large bag full of descriptions and definitions that defy common sense. One that has gained great currency over the past couple of decades is the definition of a [...]