SummaryAs we began 2023, expectations for the U.S. economy were much gloomier than what has actually evolved in the first 11 months of the year. Stocks are on pace to close out 2023 on a strong note, as several major US market indexes recently set new highs for the year. However, the big story during…
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Over the weekend I drafted my monthly commentary and was about to post it until I read this article published by The Motley Fool on November 1. Long story short, though the S&P 500 has delivered a return of about 8.5% as of November 1, 2023, if you remove the following 7 companies from the…
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Hope your day is going well. Last month saw a very busy month. Not only did the markets continue its downward trend in performance, but I had the privilege of cross-country travel visiting clients on both coast. During that 2-week stint, I set out to inform clients of signals we are seeing that could disrupt…
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August has historically been a rough month for markets. This year proved no different as the stock rally ground to a halt. Stocks tumbled before paring back some of their losses, with Wall Street still trying to figure out when the Federal Reserve will end its long campaign of interest rate hikes. There were some…
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At the start of this year, Wall Street managers and analyst reported that 2023 would not be a great year to invest and investors should be defensive increasing their cash positions in lieu of expected volatility. BlackRock’s Chariman and CEO reported in the eve of 2023 that Investment Managers should throw out their investment playbook,…
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Now that we have reached the half-way point of the year, let’s review the last 6 months in the market. At the beginning of 2023, there was a prevailing sense of negativity as both the S&P 500 and bonds experienced significant double-digit losses. However, we argued that the smart investor should stay invested. We were…
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May 2, 2023 “Sell in May and go away” is probably the most widely cited stock market cliché in history. So let’s take a look at this historical seasonal pattern to see if it is indeed true in this current market cycle. What is sell in May? “Sell in May and go away” is the…
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Three months ago we along with much of the consensus were forecasting an imminent recession in Europe with the US following not far behind. We were also worried that China’s zero COVID policy would negatively impact China’s economy resulting in another year of anemic growth. We further viewed that Central banks worldwide would have to contend…
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“After a strong start to the year driven by institutional investors, skepticism over the sustainability of the rally is now unanimously in question as bears begin to wrestle control from the bulls,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide. This pretty much sums up what we have been observing since the start of…
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January’s return surprised pretty much the entirety of investors including Wall Street. As of month end January 2023 most investors remained unconvinced by last month’s rally sitting on one of the largest money market balances since September 2021. Recall 2022 wiped out TRILLIONS of dollars in market value. Not to mention, January has seen a…
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