Stocks were up nearly 4% last week due to a ceasefire between the US and Iran that was supposed to open the Strait of Hormuz and allow oil to start flowing again. Crude oil fell 14% while the GSCI commodity index fell almost 7%. The dollar, which really hadn't rallied much during the conflict, fell 1.3%. All of this despite [...]
The Post-COVID Volatility When one thinks back on all that has happened since 2020, it is, I think, amazing how little the US economy has changed over that time. Obviously, the economy was volatile during the shutdown of the economy during COVID and during the period when the economy was re-opening. Real GDP fell over 7% in the second quarter [...]
Sentiment about the economy is negative right now, but that isn't a new development. The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is near its all-time worst reading, which was set just a few years ago in 2022. The expectations portion of that survey is currently at levels only seen in the mid-70s, near the bottom of the '73/74 bear market, [...]
There's a lot going on right now and I've got way more questions than answers. Here's a few that seem important: Is this stock market correction the beginning of a bear market? Obviously, no one knows but Friday's close did mark a milestone. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite both closed below their respective 200-day moving averages. The 200-day MA [...]
How can the US re-open the Strait of Hormuz? That is the $64,000 question for investors today and the Trump administration so far doesn't have an answer beyond asking other countries for help (which they probably should have done before they started this). While Asian and European countries certainly have an incentive to get the strait open and oil flowing [...]
While it seems obvious that the future should feature a lower dollar and gold continuing to outperform stocks, that is far from assured. That is the consensus view and while the crowd can be right for a long time, its clairvoyance is inversely proportional to its size. The more consensus the consensus becomes, the less likely it is to happen. [...]
This is, in my opinion, the most interesting chart in all of finance. This shows the return from gold versus the total return of the S&P 500 since 1/1/2000. As you can see, gold's return has exceeded that of stocks by almost 3 to 1; it isn't even close. If you had bought gold at the turn of the century, [...]
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