The much-anticipated March Federal Reserve meeting concluded last week, and Chairman Powell announced a 25 basis point increase in the Fed’s target funds rate. This was widely expected and is the first increase since 2018. More importantly, Chairman Powell said that the Board was prepared to aggressively address inflation pressure by continuing to raise rates… Read the full article.
As atrocities continue in Ukraine, the world of finance will momentarily turn its attention to the U.S. Federal Reserve tomorrow. It is widely expected that the Fed will announce its long anticipated decision on raising interest rates in an effort to normalize monetary policy after years (actual years) of stimulus. It began with the financial… Read the full article.
War rages on in Ukraine with daily reminders to the rest of the world that war equals horror and death. In my life of more than 50 years, there have been a handful of occasions when it hit home just how real and bad war is. Most of the other times, lucky people like me… Read the full article.
I will start today’s commentary with a prayer for peace and an end to war. There are times when talking about the gyrations of the stock market seems trivial and almost impolite. Today is one of those times. As a husband, father, grandfather and citizen of this earth, I am afraid. I am afraid that… Read the full article.
Difficult market conditions persist, with the Russia/Ukraine dispute front and center following Russia’s decision to “recognize the independence of” disputed territories in eastern Ukraine. As such, they moved incrementally towards a more significant armed conflict. The U.S. and European allies have responded with sanctions including Germany’s stopping the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia…. Read the full article.
Equity markets worldwide remain extremely volatile with swings of 1-2% daily. The benchmark S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq are still battling their respective 200-day moving averages. This important technical line between bull and bear conditions is being watched closely by institutional investors. The inability to close above that level is not a good sign… Read the full article.
Interest rates (particularly their rapid rise) remain front and center on investors’ minds. We are right in the middle of earnings season and the ongoing re-pricing of future earnings due to the forecasted rise in rates has made for a volatile and unpredictable stock market. What appears to be a strong fourth quarter report for… Read the full article.
I have to say, January could not end soon enough for me. As many of you know, we have been managing money professionally for a long time – and in all types of environments. Difficult market conditions are to be expected and are part of investing. To be successful over the long term, you must… Read the full article.
About 12 years ago, Cabana’s lead engineer David Covington and I were working on our original portfolio and were discussing why we felt like limiting big losses and protecting drawdown was so important to long-term success in investing. The first part is simple math. If you lose a lot in a bad market, you must… Read the full article.
The long weekend did not soothe bond or stock markets as evidenced by the continued sell-off yesterday. The correction in equities continues coincident with the ongoing drop in bond prices and jump in yields. I like to take things day by day and do not enjoy or value predictions as a rule, but it appears… Read the full article.
Just before Christmas we wrote a commentary suggesting that the easy low volatility investing might be coming to an end after more than a year of the broad equity indices moving up without a correction of more than 5%. Not only is such an unabated move up highly unusual, but it is not particularly healthy… Read the full article.
Well, 2022 is officially here. The last two years have really been a blur to me. I am sure the feeling is pretty much the same for everyone else. I am paid to talk about the markets, so I will. I think it is beyond remarkable that the broad stock indices realized up years… Read the full article.
U.S equity markets have been on almost a straight upward path for more than a year, with no pullback approaching a 10% “correction”. This unusual period of easy times may be coming to an end. The emergence of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, coupled with rising inflation and a tightening of monetary conditions by the Federal… Read the full article.
We ended last week’s commentary with a look at the major stock indices and pointed out that, despite an all-out sell off over the past few weeks, the broad market (S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq) held important technical support at the 50-day and 200-day moving averages. This supported the view that bulls still held the stronger hand and… Read the full article.
The last week certainly falls into the not so easy category when it comes to investing. Equities of all types have sold off… hard. Small caps and technology have gotten the worst of it, but that is largely due to the blue chips and industrials underperformance over the past several weeks. All major indices have fallen from 5-10% in the rush to exit risk assets. The culprit is alleged to be a combination of the Covid-19 Omicron… Read the full article.
The emergence of a new coronavirus strain dubbed Omicron sent world stock markets into freefall late last week. Whether this new threat sets us back economically remains to be seen. Initial reports suggest the variant is more transmissible than Delta and is likely to be less responsive to vaccination and treatment. The good news is that the early… Read the full article.
As predicted last week, market volatility has been elevated. Part of this, in my opinion, is due to seasonal (holiday) factors and part is due to the need to work through overbought conditions in the market cap-weighted indices, following the large move up beginning in early October. Yesterday, equity markets opened with significant gains across the board… Read the full article.
The major U.S. stock indices broke a six-week winning streak last week. This is despite a pretty strong day on Friday. As we have pointed out several times, some backfilling is entirely appropriate given the move up we have seen since early October. The New York Fed released its Manufacturing Index for November yesterday. Manufacturing activity exceeded expectations and appears to… Read the full article.
Equity markets continue upward on the back of strong earnings. Most of the companies (81%) in the S&P 500 that have reported, beat analysts’ forecasts. A blowout jobs number on Friday and muted response to the Fed’s announcement of its intent to taper bond purchases, have also contributed to eight straight days of gains by the benchmark S&P 500 (SPY). This is… Read the full article.
November is here and the holidays are around the corner. Time keeps on flying by. Sometimes I wish everything could just stop. Only for a while. Maybe for a month or two. Then I could catch up on all the things I need to do, the people I need to hug, the beautiful world I need to… Read the full article.
