Since the Federal Reserve ended their QE policy back in October, stocks have flattened out and bond yields have risen. Valuations in the stock market are high. Maybe not as elevated as the highest valuations in 2000, but none the less they are very expensive, particularly some sectors like healthcare and consumer stocks. Bond yields…
Read BlogThe stock market looks to have stablized as there appears to be a solution not to kill off Greece for now. However, Greece will not survive long term as a Euro member. China imposed severe penalties on short selling, so their market stablized. If you look at the charts below you can see the S&P…
Read BlogAs we mentioned last week, we thought “hunkering down” made a lot of sense. Greece did default as we have been expecting. We don’t see how a deal is made as the amount of debt is too large and the austerity needed is too crippling. With 61% of the referendum voting No to the austerity,…
Read BlogLast week, the yield or income oriented stocks and technology stocks got pounded, utilities fell 2.4%, Equity REITs fell by a similar amount, the longer end of the bond market declined over 2%, and semiconductor stocks fell by over 4%. We believe some of the yield oriented sectors of the market are becoming very attractively…
Read BlogThe market reacted positively last week to the Federal Reserve mapping out, as much as possible, the trajectory of rate increases moving up from 0-.25% to just under 3% by the end of 2017. There will likely be at least one rate increase this year. 2017 seems to be an eternity in stock market years….
Read BlogThe Federal Reserve meets this week and plans a press conference on Wednesday. Other than this week, the Fed will meet in July, September, October and December. It is widely expected the Fed will raise rates in September. Generally, when the Fed raises rates it is not once or twice but numerous times. Our best…
Read BlogLast week, the bond market had a very tough week, along with other interest rate sensitive securities. As an example, the widely watched 10 Year Treasury Note yield increased .30% to 2.4%. Additionally, other bond markets around the world have also been weak lately, such as the 10 Year German Bund which has increased from…
Read BlogSome of the issues that we hear a lot of chatter about from investors and in the media, have been the seasonal weakness of the equity market in June, the weakness in the transportation index, the weakness of recent economic data, and investors gravitating to index funds. The Dow has been in a bull market…
Read BlogThe sentiment feels like the market is starting to think more about normalizing prices. The 0.3% CPI reported last week was an acceleration from the prior month of 0.2% and the trailing 12 months of 1.8%. There was a big jump in medical cost this month. The Federal Reserve has wanted a 2% inflation rate….
Read BlogLast week, the market pierced above the resistance that has been tested repeatedly for the S&P 500 of 2120. What happens from here is the market should move higher based on this near term momentum. However, it is a little like watching a 350 pound lineman run the 40 yard dash. It is just not…
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