I was told many years ago when I started in this business that it wasn't my job to predict the future. Our job as investors is to properly and accurately interpret the present. I was also told that wasn't as easy as it sounded and the current consensus about the state of the world was probably, almost certainly, almost always, [...]
Last week was only four days due to the President's day holiday but it was eventful. The big news of the week was the spike in interest rates, which according to the press reports I read, "came out of nowhere". In other words, the writers couldn't find an obvious cause for a 14-basis point rise in the 10-year Treasury note [...]
This is a holiday-shortened week in the US but there is some important data on tap. Retail sales are expected to show a month-to-month rise for the first time since September. Year-over-year numbers remain pretty subdued and likely will until life returns to something resembling normal. Producer prices will likely rise but inflation continues its benign ways. It is likely [...]
One of the hardest things to understand as an investor is that markets sometimes - often - don't line up with economic reality. Markets rarely reflect current economic conditions and at times they seem to discount a future that seems highly unlikely at best, and delusional at worst. That seems to be the case today, as stocks sit near all-time [...]
This isn’t about COVID. It’s been building since the end of August, a shift in mood, perception, and reality that began turning things several months before even then. With markets fickle yet again, a lot today, what’s going on here?What you’ll hear or have already heard is something about Europe and more lockdowns, fears about a second wave of the [...]
They should be drooling over the prospects of a clearing path toward normality. The pain and disaster of 2020’s economic hole receding into a more pleasant 2021 which would have been in position to conceivably pay it all back before any long run damage. Getting back to just even with February instead is becoming a distant probability, the kind of [...]
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), crude oil production fell below 10 mbpd during the final week of August 2020. Hurricane Laura had looped through the Gulf of Mexico, forcing the widespread shutting down of drilling and pumping activity throughout the offshore oil patch. It was the first time total American crude supply had dropped below that level [...]
The key word in the whole thing is “bias.” For a very long time, people working in and around the finance industry have sought to gain tremendous advantages. No explanation for the motive is required. Charts, waves, technical (sounding) analysis and so on. To many dispassionate observers there was always this sort of improper religious fervor to it rather than [...]
Is three weeks a new record? That’s about how long Jay Powell’s performance bought him across most major markets. It was May 17, a Sunday night, when he appeared on 60 Minutes and, pardon me again, lied his ass off. One right after another, starting with the most obvious falsehood that his gang at the Federal Reserve “saw it coming.” [...]
It has to be a combination of confirmation bias and rationalizations. Not even the official story finishes up with the fairy tale ending. The “V” people seem to be ignoring what the most optimistic group is actually saying. And these optimists absolutely want it to be that way.It bears repeating the “V” case; that once the non-economic shutdowns are lifted, [...]
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