I'll just get this out of the way right at the beginning. The question in the title of this post refers to the end of the ongoing stock market correction and the answer is likely no. There are no sure things in this business so it isn't an unequivocal no, but based on history, the odds favor more weakness. I [...]
Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline. - Philip Roth Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful. - Warren Buffett The new year hasn't gotten off to a great start for growth stocks or [...]
What is the consensus about the economy today? Will 2022 growth be better or worse than 2021? Actually, that probably isn't the right question because the economy slowed significantly in the second half of 2021. The real question is whether growth will improve from that reduced pace. The Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracker now has Q4 growth all the way down [...]
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche The new year got off to quite a bang last week. It was almost as if someone flipped a switch and investors/traders suddenly decided that all that stuff they believed last year was just so passe. Growth stocks? Nah, who wants [...]
No one knows what the future holds. Not me, not you, and certainly not Wall Street. But while the future is impossible to see, the present is clear for anyone willing to listen to the story the market tells every day. Here's what it said in 2021: Click here to download “2021 In Review: Year End Economic Assessment” (Sign-Up Required). This report includes [...]
The headlines last Friday were ominous: Inflation Hits Highest Level in Nearly 40 Years Inflation is Painfully High... Groceries and Christmas Presents Are Going To Cost More Inflation is Soaring.. America's Inflation Burst This morning on Face The Nation, Mohamed El-Erian, former Harvard endowment manager, former bond king apprentice, economist, and the man who seems to have a permanent presence [...]
The economic news recently has been better than expected and in most cases just pretty darn good. That isn't true on a global basis, as Europe continues to experience a pretty sluggish recovery from COVID. And China is busy shooting itself in the foot as Xi pursues the re-Maoing of Chinese society, damn the economic costs. But here in the [...]
Here we go again. Or maybe, more accurately, here we go still. COVID has reared its ugly head again, this time in the form of a new variant called Omicron. The name surprised some folks because the next letter in the Greek alphabet was Nu, but the WHO thought that sounded too much like "new" so they skipped that one, [...]
Look around the poker table. If you can't see the sucker, you're it. Warren Buffett I actually don't know if Warren Buffett was the first to say that and I'm not sure that's exactly the right phrasing. When I sat down to write this I thought it was from Amarillo Slim, a professional gambler from Arkansas. Or maybe that other [...]
Consumer sentiment hit a decade low last month, falling 6 points from an already low level. The culprit? Inflation, which we learned last week hit a 3 decade high in October. And if the founder of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is right, the next thing we'll see is an economic slowdown. George Katona was a psychologist who [...]
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