Weekly Commentary

  There is so much going on that a very big event, Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp, might get obscured by other news. Russia invaded the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine. Being a noteworthy topic, there should be plenty of punditry to inform all of us on the significance of this event. Here’s what I believe: Ukraine […]

  On Thursday of last week, The Federal Reserve released the minutes from their meeting on January 29, 2014. They made an astonishing statement: “…the Committee continues to see the improvement in economic activity and labor market conditions over that period as consistent with growing underlying strength in the broader economy.”[i] Let’s just take a […]

  As we have opined in the past several months, much of the US GDP growth has come from businesses pushing “all in” on the US consumer and building up inventories to meet expected demand. (Source: Moody’s Analytics, GDP) As the impact of inventory on GDP begins to diminish, will consumption take its place? It’s […]

  (click here for a definition) The latest jobs report should confirm a concern we have expressed for many years; the economy continues to need extraordinary action by the Federal Reserve to keep the macro US economy limping along. In December, the monthly jobs report showed the US economy only added 75,000 jobs.[i] On Friday, […]

  We are now 40% of the way through earnings season. It’s a good time to take a quick look at how the scorecard looks—especially since we have seen much of our recent stock price appreciation driven by multiple expansion rather than earnings growth. [i] According to our friends at Bespoke, 65.5% of all companies […]

  Friday’s market action was some of the most severe to the downside we have seen in months. In fact, the 318 point drop on the Dow was the largest since June 20. [i] (Source: Bloomberg LP) The reasons for the sudden drop are really anyone’s guess. Some of the “talking heads” and prognosticators suggested […]

  As this calendar year unfolds it looks quite apparent market participants are in a bit of a tug-o-war. Markets have barely budged from the start of the year. [i] Equity investors are dealing with an interesting equilibrium point as it relates to valuations. According to Goldman Sachs, there is still some room for US […]

  The US economy added the fewest number of jobs in December (74,000) since January 2011. [i] Much of the blame for the terrible jobs report was the weather. I know the weather was horrific in parts of the country. We have a national clientele and plenty of anecdotal evidence. According to Phil Izzo and […]

In recent weeks we have seen some extraordinary data published by the federal government. It seems like our budget deficit (the amount of money the government has to borrow to meet its spending) has been shrinking at an astonishing pace. Contrary to what economists predicted as doom if the US Government cut deficit spending, the […]

  In the next several days you will begin to see a dearth of predictions about 2014. How much will the S&P 500 go up or down? How much will the US economy grow in 2014? Unemployment? Wall Street firms know one thing about us that we generally don’t realize. Investors are predisposed to avoid […]