Weekly Commentary

  While the governing class debates the merits of opening the economy, it is clear there has been one “return to normal” paradigm: The political class is clearly posturing to again lay blame and claim some political victory. That’s just a sideshow for investors and, frankly, upcoming earnings reports might also be a sideshow. In […]

  If you’ve read this blog in the past, you know we always evoke a few key themes; one of which being that markets move in brief bursts. If you miss just a few key days over a long period of time you lose all your advantage. [i] Last week was a perfect example, as […]

  We just published our Q2 Look Ahead—a 17-minute look forward with a lot of charts. Perhaps too many charts. I suspect you might have some time on your hands and, therefore, additional content was provided. You can watch a video of it by clicking here or just view the presentation by clicking here. If […]

    If you have questions or comments, please let us know. You can contact us via Twitter and Facebook, or you can e-mail Tim directly. For additional information, please visit our website.   Tim Phillips, CEO, Phillips & Company     Sources: i.            https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2020/03/weekly-initial-unemployment-claims_26.html ii.            https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SPX:IND iii.            https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/26/senate-stimulus-bill-coronavirus-2-trillion-list-what-is-in-it/ iv.            https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/goldman-sees-an-unprecedented-stop-of-economic-activity-with-2nd-quarter-gdp-contracting-by-24percent.html v.            https://blogs.wsj.com/dailyshot/ vi.            http://covid19.healthdata.org/ vii.            […]

At the time of this writing, a full 25% of Americans have been ordered to stay at home in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19. [i]     By the time this blog is published, we may very well wake up to a Monday in America that has our entire nation shut down […]

Risk is such an uncertain concept. Most view it as an emotional event— as evidenced by recent outcomes with the current coronavirus pandemic. How can anyone contemplate the risk of something they have never experienced?   We tend to amplify the worst case outcome, even if it has very low odds. Lacking certainty in the […]

  The last week was as anticipated…volatile. (see our Special Panic Edition blog here). We had days that were up over 1,000 points and days that were down more than 900 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. [i] To most investors, this would look like erratic, emotional behavior by investors—and perhaps there is some […]

When I wrote the post, “And Now for the Bad News” on February 24th, I was anticipating some discounting by investors to earnings adjustments and dire macro-economic news related to the Coronavirus outbreak. Candidly, I didn’t expect to have the worst week for equities since the Great Financial Crisis and the quickest 10%+ drop in […]

  The Coronavirus has dominated the news cycle for weeks and it is not surprising the hysteria has been rampant. The truth is the virus is on the decline in mainland China. In the graphic below, you can see the number of patients leaving the hospital growing and declines in severe cases and confirmed cases. […]

  As we enter the fourth week of combatting the coronavirus, global perceptions about the impact are starting to take shape. Let’s start with the latest on the spread of the virus from the World Health Organization (WHO). [i]   Despite having spread across the globe, the exposure within each country is incredibly small especially […]