First March Economic Data: It Isn’t Pretty
Worst Case Scenario Gets Worse It’s a sign of the unprecedented times we are living in that the Fed’s emergency rate cut over the weekend and new round of QE wasn’t even the biggest news discussed on Monday. That’s because we are seeing wholesale economic shutdowns previously thought to be impossible. Just a few days…
10th Biggest Rally In Stocks Ever
March Madness March Madness college basketball tournament was canceled, but March madness in markets is still going. Many investors who have been in the game for decades have said this is the craziest action they have ever seen. Personally, I followed markets during the 2007-2009 recession and concur. Total decline in stocks might not be…
Consumers Are Still Confident?
“V Shaped” Recovery Could Be Afoot With the volatility in stocks, few investors seem to care about economic analysis. However, now that we are beginning to get the weak data from March coming out, it will be interesting to assess the damage. Personally, I think once the shutdown is over, the economy will have a…
2020: The Infamous Year Of The COVID-19 Crash
2020 Will Go Down In Infamy This is the worst market I’ve ever seen since I started following stocks in 2007. S&P 500 is only down 26.67% from its peak, but it’s clear we aren’t at the trough yet. This is already a historic period and it’s not over. Usually we can contextualize negative events…
Little Long Term Economic Impact From COVID-19
Jobless Claims Fall It's not surprising that jobless claims from the week of March 7th fell. The economy was just starting to deal with this crisis in the beginning of March. Think of all the news that has come out in the past few days. NBA and NHL are being shut down. Restaurants and bars in…
Unprecedented Pessimism: Recession Being Priced In
Quickest Bear Market Decline Ever In the past few weeks many have been discussing how this bear market due to COVID-19 isn’t as bad as the 2008 financial crisis. The situation is inching closer to the financial crisis and further away from the mini bear market of 2018. VIX closed above 40 for the 4th straight…
2 Year High In Economic Surprises
Comical Economic Data Eeconomic data is comical at this point. We keep getting good results in the midst of an abject panic from stock market investors. Clearly, the economy was in great shape in January. And it was even better that many thought it would be in February. We are still waiting for the shoe…
Stocks Will Fall Further Only If This Is A Recession
Big Tuesday Rebound The stock market rebounded sharply on Tuesday as it was up 4.94%. This makes sense because it was very oversold on Monday. There was a point in the morning where stocks went negative, but by the afternoon, stocks gained momentum and rallied to the close. That’s been a theme with rallies in…
Small Business Confidence Stays High, But Coronavirus Looms
High Small Business Confidence? The government is working on helping small businesses deal with the coronavirus. Normally, the NFIB small business confidence index rising from 104.3 to 104.5, which is in the top 10th percentile in the 46 year history of this report, is a positive. But this just shows small firms didn’t see the negative…
7th Biggest Decline Since WWII
Massive Selloff To Start The Week The stock market fell the 7th most in one day since WWII. This is the 5th greatest decline many have ever seen. As you can see in the table below, the 7.6% decline lagged the 1987 crash and the financial crisis. This crash is amazing because in context, the coronavirus doesn’t…