Valuations Pass The 1929 Bull Market Peak
Copper Bounces Off The Lows In a previous article, a couple weeks ago I discussed how copper’s decline didn’t mean you should get worried about the global economy. Sure enough, the price of copper, which you can see in the chart below, has rallied sharply back to where it started the selloff in October. Now…
Euroskeptics Trending In Italy
2018 Italian Elections The Italian election must be held no later than May 20th. Therefore, it will be held in March, April, or May. It has been surprising to see the Euroskeptic movement gain so much momentum considering the relative strength of the overall economy. If the economy was weak and Sicily saw even more weakness,…
30 Year Futures Show Excessive Bullishness
People Think Their Taxes Will Be Raised, But They Won’t It's always interesting when vast swaths of people believe something that isn’t true. One example of this is the FOMO involved in cryptocurrencies. The total valuation of all the coins is $606 billion. It’s difficult to rationalize that valuation, but most speculators don’t care. They…
Modi Wins State Elections, Stabilizing The Indian Markets
Financials Do Well When The 10 Year Yield Rises We’ve discussed which sectors do well when the yield curve flattens. Now let’s look at which sectors do well when the 10 year bond yield goes up. The 10 year bond has gone up 45% of the time since 2010. I think inflation will increase in…
GOP Senate Has The Votes To Pass The Tax Cut
Analysts Have A Great 2017 Analysts get a lot of flak when they get caught changing their price targets and recommendations after an earnings surprise. I sometimes criticize them to make sure investors know not to take their word as gospel. If you are a beginner, you might think the 12 month price targets are…
The Middle Class & Poor Haven’t Recovered From The Financial Crisis
The Poor Have A Negative Net Worth In a previous article we discussed how populism could rise in 2017. If you’re career is going well, you might be detached from the plight of some in the lower class. The charts below help you understand their recent woes. It shows the changes in net worth in…
Will 2018 See A Rally Based On Tax Cuts?
GOP Agrees On A Tax Plan Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Bob Corker announced they support the latest tax plan which gives it enough votes to pass. The final vote will be on Tuesday, but at this point the decision is known. This helped the stock market rally briskly on Friday. The S&P 500 was up 0.9%…
Investors Don’t Believe Fed Guidance Because Of Disappointing Inflation
FOMC Transcript The Fed’s recent statement and press conference saw the market respond as if they were dovish. That goes against the actions which were a rate hike, a promise of 3 hikes next year, increasing the balance sheet runoff to $20 billion per month, and increasing the dot plot by one hike in 2020.…
Fed Raises Rates & The Dot Plot Moves Higher
GOP Set To Vote On Tax Plan Next Week The House and Senate have been in conference this past week. They have agreed upon a plan in principal. Some minor variables need to be solved. The goal is to have the votes early next week. The party leaders say they have enough votes to pass…
2018 Could See A 4.3% Increase In The S&P 500
Analysts Have Been Very Bullish Every year analysts are bullish. Heading into 2008, analysts expected the S&P 500 to go up when you use their bottom up target price estimate. It’s not a bad idea to expect stocks and earnings to move up each year since they usually go up. For sell side research, it’s…