Stay At Home Wins Again

Work From Home Trade Is Back Large caps fell and small caps rose slightly on Friday which isn’t what you would normally associate with the work from home trade doing well because tech dominates large caps and banks dominate small caps. However, that’s what happened. It’s a very tough trade to make because 5 U.S.…

Economy Could Take Major Hit To Start 2021 Due To This

No Rent Payments This current economy is rough for renters and great for single family home buyers. As you can see from the chart below, 14.5 million people either have no or slight confidence that they will have enough for rent next month. This survey was done from mid to late October. Imagine how much…

Euphoria Back At Late August Levels

Stocks Increase Modestly Despite the news of worse economic restrictions and record high hospitalizations and cases, the stock market rose on Thursday which signals once again that the stock market is looking past the virus for greener pastures. S&P 500 was up 39 basis points and the VIX was down 0.73 to 23.11. We are…

Existing Home Sales Go Vertical - Jobless Claims Increase

Housing Stays Strong Housing data was strong again this week as you’d expect. November housing market index rose 5 points to 90. Present conditions index was 96 which is about as high as it can get. Expectations index was up 1 point to 89 and the traffic index was up 3 points to 77. There…

Temporary Decline In Reopening Stocks

Finally, A Breather The market came into Wednesday’s trading session very hot. Finally, we saw a pullback as the S&P 500 fell 1.16%. Finally, small caps underperformed and tech outperformed. Russell 2000 fell 1.26% and the Nasdaq fell 0.82%. Reopening trade isn’t over though. This is just a pause.  Negative news on the day were…

How Is The Economy Dealing With COVID-19?

Counterpoint To Consumer Spending We’ve gotten mostly weak Redbook same store sales growth. October retail sales report showed a little weakness. And Chase’s card data showed a modest decline in yearly growth in the past few weeks. That all makes sense when you see the spike in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. It’s the consensus…

Reopening Trade Doesn’t Care About COVID-19 Spread - Focuses On Vaccines

Rally Continues For Small Caps Large caps fell in a rare pullback for November. However, small caps were up again as they are overbought in the near term. S&P 500 fell 48 basis points and the Nasdaq fell 21 basis points. Small cap index was up 37 basis points. Reopening trade won again which is…

Christmas Looking Grimmer By The Day?

Getting Coal For Christmas While people won’t actually be getting coal for Christmas, almost half will be getting less expensive gifts than last year. As you can see from the chart below, as of the start of November, 45% of Americans said they would be spending less on presents. 41% said they would be spending…

Stocks Rise On Moderna Monday

Yet Another Rally In Small Caps It’s surprising how easy it was to see the rally coming on Monday. It was so easy, some investors over thought it and didn’t buy beforehand. We knew Moderna’s vaccine data would be great and that it would come out this week. A 94.5% effectiveness of the vaccine helped…

Operation Ignore The Economic Data Is Working

Economic Data Is Irrelevant It seems like the only people who care about the economic data are macro nerds. The stock market is rising despite bad data. Many don’t disagree with the rise in cyclical stocks. One theory is that the economy will recover after the vaccines are widely given out this spring. Obviously, slowdowns…