Stocks Primed for a Rally
Stocks Primed For A Rally The stock market is uncertain about the possibility of a trade war and a hawkish Fed. However, I think a trade deal will be struck and the Fed will pull back on its hawkish 2019 guidance. Specifically, I expect the Fed to hike rates on Wednesday and guide for either…
Bear Market - Are We In One Already?
Bear Market - Another Terrible Day Of Selling In the short term, I was very wrong to be bullish as of Friday’s close. Stocks fell sharply on Monday, which makes them even more oversold. It’s almost as if the market is doing whatever it takes to get the Fed to not hike rates on Wednesday.…
Strong Control Group Retail Sales Growth
Strong Control Group - Real Wages Monthly decline in weekly hours worked hurt real weekly wage growth. But overall the November growth was still positive which means there was improvement. This has been a relatively strong cycle for real wage growth. You can’t expect growth to average 1%-2%. Anything positive is good news. Gigh wage…
Traders Scared - It’s Time To Buy Stocks
Traders Scared - Stocks Crater Friday Stocks were hit on Friday because of worries about poor Chinese retail sales and industrial production growth. This caused the S&P 500 to fall 1.91%. That's a big deal because it fell below the November low. It is now at its lowest point since May. S&P 500 closed at…
Regional Banks Hit New Lows
Regional Banks - Small Caps Crater On Thursday S&P 500 was nearly flat as it only fell 2 basis points. It is still near the February low as it will likely remain in a tight range until tangible news about the trade war comes out and the Fed updates its 2019 guidance. VIX was down…
Bears - Most Since 2013
Bears - Mom & Pop Investors Are Nervous Investor sentiment is terrible. That's a good indicator stocks will do well in the intermediate term unless the fundamentals crater. About 50% of retail investors think the stock market will be lower in the next 6 months. Even though some bears claim investors are always buying the…
Small Business Optimism Falls
Small Business Confidence Falters Volatility in the stock market combined with the political bias in the survey caused the NFIB small business optimism index to fall from 107.4 to 104.8. You can see this in the chart below. This report missed estimates for 107 and the low end of the consensus range which was 105.5.…
Dollar Index Might Be Near Its Peak
Dollar Index - Stocks Finally Rally Wednesday The S&P 500 opened up big, but gave back some of its gains in the afternoon. It closed up 0.54%. From the peak of the day to the close, it fell 1.26%. This market wants to rally. But there is so much uncertainty about the trade war with…
Stocks Vacillate Sharply, But Stay Above The February Low
Stocks Vacillate - Very Volatile Tuesday Volatile swings continued Tuesday as the S&P 500 opened up big. Then it gave back all the gains and fell. Next it rallied a bit more, and finally closed down 0.04%. At the morning peak, the S&P 500 was up 1.3%. From the morning peak to the afternoon trough, the…
Consumer Discretionary Stocks Signal A Recession Isn’t Coming
Consumer Discretionary Stocks Tell the Future The relative performance of consumer discretionary sector gives us an indicator where the economy is headed. As you can see from the chart below, the consumer discretionary sector has outperformed the S&P 500 as of September 30th. That suggests a recession isn’t coming soon. The chart shows relative outperformance…
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