As investors have seen repeatedly for the last 80 years, U.S. government gridlock has generally been good for U.S. stocks. “Gridlock” just means that neither political party controls both houses of Congress and the presidency. Historically, gridlock has produced few new initiatives that either major political party can tout, but it Read more…
Market Summary The U.S. Economy and Market: For Now, Fears Are Overriding Fundamentals The U.S. economic picture continues to be strong in spite of fears about a slowdown. From and economic point of view, strong GDP growth in the third calendar quarter of 3.5% brings GDP growth for the first Read more…
A Typical Seasonal Correction and Its Excuses The correction that hit U.S. stocks last week was a very typical seasonal affair — a little later than usual, but very much in the normal script. One of the typical things about it was that the reasons given for it were found Read more…
European and U.S. Banks: Risks Dampen Investors’ Enthusiasm As the most cyclical of cyclicals, banks were supposed to benefit from the corner turned in early 2018. Typically, in the mature phase of an economic cycle, as inflation and interest rates are rising, growth is kicking into higher gear, and economic Read more…
We said in our last conference call that the bull market was not dead. As 2018 gets underway, the U.S. stock market continues to rally — but what lies ahead in the coming year? Can investors expect further bullish performance from stocks? Some observers believe the market has already anticipated Read more…
Bitcoin’s wild gyrations have this year become even wilder, driven largely by an ongoing “civil war” within the commu-nity of coders and miners who make up the cryptocurrency’s ecosystem. So what’s the nature of this civil war, what are the stakes, and what might the consequences be? On Read more…
A Trade War With China? That’s Already Been Happening For Decades During last year’s U.S. presidential campaign, we began reading discus-sions about the possible effects of a trade war with China. Since the new administration took office, such dis-cussions have become ubiquitous. But even last year, we were left Read more…
The U.S. and many global stock markets have continued to move ahead. Even rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, and the theoretical prospect of nuclear war, were met by markets with a brief shrug — and this during a seasonal period when markets are often unsteady and experience corrections. As Read more…
93% of S&P 500 companies have reported second-quarter earnings; the remainder will continue into early Sep-tember. As of this writing, bottom-up earnings for the S&P stand at $32.63, representing a 5.9% quarter-over-quar- ter increase and a 10.6% year-over-year increase. In short, earnings are strong — and with four quarters Read more…
From time to time, coverage of China rises to a crescendo in the popular media. China coverage reflects some of the same schizophrenia that afflicts much of the media’s output. At many points in the past several years, accord-ing to the media, China has been a tot-tering giant whose economy Read more…
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