03|04|2016
Thanksgiving or Black Thursday…
Every year Black Friday comes earlier and earlier. While this should bode well for consumer discretionary investments I was dreading seeing loved ones leave Thanksgiving early to get in...
03|04|2016
Bad news = selling & good news = buying, Huh, interesting…
That almost sounds like what should happen on a regular basis… Since the government shutdown we’ve seen the opposite. Positive economic data was viewed as an indication that the...
03|04|2016
Goodbye Austerity… at least for now
Austerity: a word that is a necessity, but causes so much short term pain to the economy and markets. Well, with the recent budget passed by Congress we get...
03|04|2016
Taper, Taper, Taper… Sick of it yet???
The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) has finally reduced its bond purchase program, but what needs to be remembered is that the program was reduced from $85 Billion in monthly...
03|04|2016
Week and Year in Review…
We’ll get to last week in the next paragraph, however I would like to start this week’s Market Thoughts with a quick look at 2013 performance (through 12/27/2013). – ...
03|04|2016
2014 Headwinds and Tailwinds
2013 posted the strongest market performance since the 90’s and the New Year began with some apprehension. Let’s look at headwinds that could persist and tailwinds that could drive...
03|04|2016
Unemployment data decrypted
This past Friday we saw the unemployment rate fall to 6.7%, its lowest level since October of 2008. That’s reason to celebrate, right? Wrong! It’s kind of like when...
03|04|2016
Can the big game predict stock market returns for the coming year???
There is a very high correlation between strong stock market performance for the year and the success of heritage NFL teams (now NFC teams) versus weak market performance when...
03|04|2016
If emerging markets jump off a bridge will the US follow??
This last week we saw the US markets shutter in response to concerns over emerging markets (EM) growth prospects. China’s Manufacturing PMI fell from 50.5 to 49.6 in December...
03|04|2016
5 Years of Growth
Over the last 5 years we have seen the Dow Jones index grow from a low of 6547.10 on 03/09/2009 to a recent high of 16,576.66 on 12/31/2013[2]. Quite...