I wish you and your family safety and good health during this extraordinarily difficult and dangerous time. We badly need stabilization in the markets. The market has dropped over 30%, the swiftest decline of that magnitude in history. For the time being, the most urgent hope is the market somehow reaches, at least, a temporary […]

More Than Meets the Eye Despite persistent woes, the stock market rang in a new decade by finishing 2019 with its best showing since 2013. Two Fed rate cuts and a partial suspension of China trade tariffs inoculated the market and paved the way for an 8.5% gain for the fourth quarter and contributed to […]

3rd Quarter 2019 Market Overview Range Bound It is evident the stock market is having difficulty clearing obstacles. A familiar drumbeat of a slowing economy and nagging trade tariff concerns combined to constrain major market indices and to minimize gains for the third quarter. The S&P 500 finished the third quarter with a gain of […]

This fall kicks off the eighth quarter in a row where the major stock market averages have not been able to reach meaningfully higher levels. As of last week, the S&P 500 sits below its level from last year and is only marginally higher than its level going back 21 months to January of 2018. […]

2nd Quarter 2019 Market Overview The Market Giveth, Taketh, and Giveth again The pace of the market slowed in the second quarter from the torrid gains of Q1. There was a sharp drop in May but a strong recovery in June overcame those losses and kept the major indices in positive territory for the second […]

1st Quarter 2019 Market Overview Suddenly, the Superlatives Return Investors poured money into the stock market in the first quarter. After the meltdown last year, descriptions such as TINA (There Is No Alternative), Goldilocks (symbolizing an economy that is just the right temperature for stocks), and FOMO (Fear of missing out) were used to describe […]

Markets Throw a Tantrum The fourth quarter was dismal for the markets. Immediately following a strong third quarter, they began to slide. By December, markets lapsed into a full-blown tantrum mode. In the 14 days leading up to Christmas, the Dow dropped 4,260 points and the S&P 500 fell 13%. From September to the low […]

The stock market is seriously injured as we enter the initial stage of 2019. Market value destruction has been deep and wide. We continue to maintain a defensive investment posture in response to the tantrum the market seems to be staging. During the 14 trading days between December 4 and Christmas Eve, the Dow fell […]

I’m hopeful that the market decline will end soon and that a strong recovery is at hand. I’m also hopeful that the level of your assets will maintain their levels so that that the recovery will be substantive. First of all, we need this mayhem in the market to recede. “Mayhem” means pure, indiscriminate selling […]

Divergences US stocks recorded their best quarter since 2013 but these gains were jolted in the opening days of this month. Eerily reminiscent of last February, the S&P 500 fell 8% in only seven days in October. So far, this plunge hasn’t been as pronounced as last February but the damage to the previous trend […]