Choppy Waters

Choppy Waters After an amazing melt up since last November, the stock market has become choppy lately. When that happens, there is typically a ‘push-pull’ occurring that has the market uncertain of its next direction. In this case, the push higher is based on a growing economy and the presumably strong earnings that will bring. […]
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Lower is the New Higher

Lower is the New Higher A funny thing happened on the way to lower rates… Fed projections went up, not down. Wall Street was focused on the Fed’s median for 2024 projection, which was unchanged at three 0.25% rate cuts this year. But the economic gurus at the Fed took away one rate cut in […]
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Confused Yet?

Confused yet? It was a week of inconsistencies. Inflation has been down; now CPI and PPI are up. Retail sales were strong; now they are weak. Manufacturing PMIs are up; Industrial production is down. Lay-off announcements are up; initial jobless claims are down. For a data dependent Fed trying to time interest rate reductions, the […]
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Tug of War

Tug of War The stock market rally continued this week, but in between there was a lot of up and down action. The S&P 500 Index fell 1.6% on Wednesday, but still managed to gain 1.4% for the week as the market eventually managed to ignore the Fed’s rate cut delay. The yield on the […]
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Cryptonite?

Cryptonite? As of Jan 11, we now have several spot Bitcoin ETFs, making ownership of Bitcoin crypto currency as simple as buying a stock. As that day approached, the thought was that when this easy avenue for investment opened up, Bitcoin would jump in price as both institutional and retail investors piled in. On that […]
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Forecasters Agree to Disagree

Forecasters Agree to Disagree In this age of big data, it’s not uncommon to see an analysis like this made-up example: After a positive year for the S&P 500, if January the following year is also up, that year is also positive 74% of the time with an average return of 9.3%. Assuming that scenario […]
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Homebuilder Stocks Outperformance in 2023

Homebuilder Stocks Outperformance in 2023 Homebuilder stocks are performing well in 2023 due to several factors affecting the U.S. housing market: Tight Housing Market: The U.S. housing market is experiencing a tightening, with an already undersupplied housing market seeing strong demand, especially for new homes. This demand is further fueled by the fact that fewer […]
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