In my previous week’s commentary, I explained why higher interest rates will hurt stock assets more than many might think. Naysayers pointed to the fact that rate levels are still quite low on a historical basis. Unfortunately, these folks are neglecting to place their comprehension of borrowing costs in context. Take a look at the last 20 years of U.S. monetary policy via the Federal Funds Rate (FFR). The Federal Reserve’s tightening phase from the 4% level up to the…
Things look pretty darn good for the U.S. economy. Unemployment rates are low, inflation-adjusted borrowing costs are practically zero, and corporate profit margins sit at record highs. U.S. consumers have taken notice. The recently released Conference Board reading for consumer confidence reached 133.4. We have not seen a data point like that since the year 2000. Ironically enough, an exceptionally happy consumer is rarely beneficial for the investment markets. Take a look at the forward returns for the S&P 500…
Let me be quick to acknowledge that yield curve inversion can have considerable lag time before a recession. And for that matter, the U.S. Treasury bond curve can invert long before a stock market bear. For instance, 10-year yields fell below two-year yields in February of 2006. That was approximately 22 months before the recession officially hit in December of 2007. What’s more, between 2/2006-10/2007, the S&P 500 managed to climb more than 20%. There’s more. The 1990s Treasury bond…
Bridgewater Associates has roughly $160 billion under management, making it the largest hedge fund on the planet. Exchange traded funds like Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets (VWO) the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) and the S&P 500 SPDR Trust (SPY) head the list of top holdings. Last week, Bridgewater said, “We are bearish on financial assets as the U.S. economy progresses toward the late cycle, liquidity has been removed, and the markets are pricing in a continuation of recent conditions despite the…
The NASDAQ served up an annualized return of 66% in its final two years of dot-com mania. Only after the balloon had burst did people begin to question the lunacy of paying 10x revenue for the privilege of being a shareholder. Ironically enough, since early 2016, the top 10 growth names in tech collectively produced an annualized return of 67%. That’s right. The NYSE FANG+ Index has topped turn-of-the-century craziness. For the current bull-bear cycle, then, we may be witnessing…
Is the stock market going up because there are more buyers than sellers? No. There are a fixed number of shares in the marketplace. For every buyer of a share, there needs to be a seller of the asset. In fact, a transaction cannot occur without each participant – each buyer and each seller – playing a role in a trade. So why is the U.S. stock market relentlessly powering ahead? Shareholding sellers are only willing to accommodate eager buyers…
I could not be any prouder of my 20-year old daughter. In the recent semester, she received “straight 7s” while studying abroad at the University of Queensland in Australia. (Those are “As.”) More impressively, within a week of arriving back in the United States this past November, she secured two part-time lab assistant positions. That’s right. My kid works while pursuing her biology degree at the University of California in San Diego. Why am I writing about my daughter’s triumphs?…
The previous decade’s financial crisis did not begin in earnest until 2008. Bear Stearns. Lehman Brothers. AIG. And yet, the warning signs had appeared long beforehand. Real estate sales had turned negative on a year-over-year basis in 2006, even as prices kept climbing. Meanwhile, SPDR Select Sector Financials (XLF) logged -21% in 2007, even as the broader S&P 500 had notched a record high as late as October. In mid-2015, European financial stocks peaked. And in much the same way…
In 2013, the S&P 500 closed at a record high at the same time that the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield closed at a record low. The reason? The Federal Reserve had been buying hundreds of millions of government bonds as part of its quantitative easing (QE) program. Indeed, back in 2013, Fed leaders determined that the country still required emergency-level economic stimulus. Here in 2016, the S&P 500 may close at a record high above 2130 at the same…
Five years ago, several European countries (e.g., Portugal, Italy, Greece, etc.) appeared as if they might default on their sovereign debt obligations. Gold prices spiked. The Japanese yen soared. U.S. Treasury bond yields plummeted. And the S&P 500 fell nearly 20% before globally coordinated central bank activity resuscitated investor appetite for U.S stocks. Today, Europe appears to be on the verge of another euro-zone crisis. This time, the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union has threatened to destabilize the…
