Market Summary

The week saw interesting developments on the cryptography and cryptocurrency fronts.  A massive international sting operation was revealed in which U.S. and Australian law enforcement had marketed compromised smartphones to sophisticated criminal users through an informant on the Dark Web, advertising them as cryptographically secure for communications.  The allegedly secure Read more

As we noted in our main piece this week, we believe it’s very important for investors to revisit their commodity allocation now, while rising inflation is still in early innings.  We’re cautious on some commodities that have run recently, such as copper and iron ore, and while we still like Read more

Various Fed officials, including Vice Chair Richard Clarida, have taken to the airwaves to talk down inflation concerns and show confidence in the Fed’s ability to engineer a “soft landing” when the time comes to curtail pandemic-era policy. This has given markets a tone of uneasy quiet. Economist Mohamed El-Arian Read more

The correction we have been expecting for some time is now underway. Inflation Breakout: Demand Pull Moving To Cost Push Inflation has broken out and gold has broken out to a two- or three-month high.  We suggest that investors use dips to buy gold, silver, copper, and other industrial metals Read more

Rising inflation expectations may be even more important for investors than rising inflation.  These expectations are forcing individual investors and money managers to include a new factor in their models and strategies that has been absent for the better part of two generations.  Notably, expectations are essentially aspects of human Read more

As we continue to lap the initial stages of the pandemic, a lot of numbers are going to start showing year-over-year peaks: GDP, earnings growth, inflation.  Looking forward, everything may start to look like deceleration — and since the market is a discounting mechanism that looks out to the future, Read more

The overall market indices in the U.S. have moved sideways, near all-time highs.  Many former high-flyers have corrected, with formerly exuberant cryptos and SPACs registering volatility and declines, suggesting that the market is already experiencing a sector by sector correction.  The S&P 500 may see more correction soon, perhaps registering Read more

While we remain bullish on the U.S. market longer-term, the market is obviously ready for a normal correction.  This correction may only be a 5% pullback, or it may be slightly more.  Therefore we have held some cash and short positions in order to hedge out the risk and provide Read more

Countries We Like We are bullish on the U.S., Japan, Korea, and India, and we favor the industries mentioned below. We are optimistic on the remainder of 2021, and believe that GDP growth in the U.S. will exceed analysts’ expectations, and that they will spend the year playing catch-up.  Market Read more

The U.S. Market The rotation continues, and for a few more months one industry after another may see a fall in stock prices while the broad indices move ahead very slowly or rotates sideways.  Interest rates will rise, but as long as five-year bond yields stay below the CPI, we Read more