Walmart reported last Thursday and guided revenues and earnings for 2025, sales for WMT were revised to 3%-4% from 5%. Sounds like a minor change but WMT is one of the best barometers for the economy and with inflation around 3% there is not much if any real growth.
Read BlogAs we mentioned last week we have become a little defensive and have added to some hedges to our portflios. The hedging is not necessarily designed to make money but is there to smooth out the ride.
Read BlogInflation is generally driven by money growth outstripping the economies’ capacity to produce additional goods and services, or supply shocks which tend to be self-correcting.
Read BlogThe two main issues we are concerned about as we have discussed repeatedly are the yield on the 10-Year Treasury, which currently is contained at around 4.5%.
Read BlogThe big news this week is a company in China called DeepSeek, as their A.I. model is apparently much better, cheaper, and requires less energy. It also has an open architecture (not proprietary—cheap!).
Read BlogClearly, investor emotion is a real thing that impacts the stock market and maybe even more importantly right now, the bond market.
Read BlogInflation/bond yields and earnings reports are the near-term focus of the market! Since September, the S&P rose by about 10% while bonds (7-10 Treasuries) fell by about 9%.
Read BlogFirst, reviewing 2024, the economy was driven significantly by fiscal spending. Monetary policy was restrictive on the surface with an inverted yield curve for part of the year and then later a flattish yield curve with a little higher yield on the longer dated Treasuries than the short-term.
Read BlogThe Federal Reserve did what we expected, they cut rates by .25%, and the S&P 500 fell by close to -3%. In last week’s update, we mentioned this would be analogous to a company guiding down earnings and the stock declining.
Read BlogSince 1950, there have been eight times that the S&P 500 gained 20% or more two years in a row, and in six years the third year saw positive gains with an average return of 12%.
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