This Friday we will get the Employment report, which is expected to be above 200,000 jobs created and for the Unemployment Rate to hold steady at 5.3%. You can see from the chart below the Unemployment Rate is at a relatively low level and does not justify the Fed remaining with a 0%-.25% Fed Funds…
Read BlogThe market internals continue to worsen, the number of stocks hitting 52-week highs last week was 20 and stocks hitting 52-week lows was 546. Keep in mind there are only 3,698 stocks in the Wilshire 5,000. We thought it was particularly concerning on Friday when Amazon.com reported a good quarter, the stock advanced significantly, but…
Read BlogThe market breadth has been very poor lately. Friday as an example when the market was up, the advancing issues were about 1,000 stocks up and 2,000 declining. So for every stock up there are two stocks down, yet the market is up. How does that happen? It happens by getting a small number of…
Read BlogSince the Federal Reserve ended their QE policy back in October, stocks have flattened out and bond yields have risen. Valuations in the stock market are high. Maybe not as elevated as the highest valuations in 2000, but none the less they are very expensive, particularly some sectors like healthcare and consumer stocks. Bond yields…
Read BlogThe stock market looks to have stablized as there appears to be a solution not to kill off Greece for now. However, Greece will not survive long term as a Euro member. China imposed severe penalties on short selling, so their market stablized. If you look at the charts below you can see the S&P…
Read BlogAs we mentioned last week, we thought “hunkering down” made a lot of sense. Greece did default as we have been expecting. We don’t see how a deal is made as the amount of debt is too large and the austerity needed is too crippling. With 61% of the referendum voting No to the austerity,…
Read BlogLast week, the yield or income oriented stocks and technology stocks got pounded, utilities fell 2.4%, Equity REITs fell by a similar amount, the longer end of the bond market declined over 2%, and semiconductor stocks fell by over 4%. We believe some of the yield oriented sectors of the market are becoming very attractively…
Read BlogThe market reacted positively last week to the Federal Reserve mapping out, as much as possible, the trajectory of rate increases moving up from 0-.25% to just under 3% by the end of 2017. There will likely be at least one rate increase this year. 2017 seems to be an eternity in stock market years….
Read BlogThe Federal Reserve meets this week and plans a press conference on Wednesday. Other than this week, the Fed will meet in July, September, October and December. It is widely expected the Fed will raise rates in September. Generally, when the Fed raises rates it is not once or twice but numerous times. Our best…
Read BlogLast week, the bond market had a very tough week, along with other interest rate sensitive securities. As an example, the widely watched 10 Year Treasury Note yield increased .30% to 2.4%. Additionally, other bond markets around the world have also been weak lately, such as the 10 Year German Bund which has increased from…
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