China Tariff Dispute Intensifies Recently, China announced it will retaliate against America’s latest round of tariffs against it. Also, China will put a 25% tariff on $16 billion worth of American products. These 333 goods include large passenger cars, motorcycles, various fuels, and fiber optic ca
Consumer Spending - Stocks Not Overhyped Consumer spending is up. Whether stocks are showing signs of exhaustion depends on which indicator you review. The CNN Fear and Greed index makes me cautious about stocks in relation to consumer spending, but the Investor Movement Index seen in the chart belo
The Greed Is Palpable Greed is increasing at an alarming rate. The S P 500 was up 0.28% and the VIX was down 3.02% to 10.93 on Tuesday. The S P 500 and Wilshire 5000 are less than 1% away from their record highs. Just as the market is getting close to its record high, it is
Toys R Us Bankruptcy Makes Report Look Bad Toys R Us bankruptcy skewed the jobs report. There are many other details which show this report was better than the headline number suggests. The most prominent one time negative impact was the Toys R Us bankruptcy. This caused the sporting goods, hobby, b
Bull Market - Longest Wave Since WWII Bull market investors are riding the wave of great earnings reports and improving estimates which aren’t being hampered by fears of a trade war or fears of an economic slowdown. Weakening ISM and Markit services reports aren’t enough to worry investors. It’s eas
Business Optimism and the Weakening PMI Services Index Business optimism - After reviewing the non-manufacturing ISM report, you must be wondering about the stability of this recovery. Is it possible that the services index is signaling a slowdown in the 2nd half of the year? Reviewing the July Mark
Tariffs Are Affecting Business Tariffs and their effects - A wood products firm made the following point: “The so-called trade war is now taking its toll on business activity, resulting in substantial reductions to new export orders. China has all but stopped taking orders, causing inventories to bu
Stocks Soar - Big Caps Rally, While Small Caps Sell Off Stocks soar - The past few weeks in the stock market have been much like 2017 as there hasn’t been much volatility. The VIX is now down to 11.64 and the S P 500 is closing in on its January record. The S P 500 was
Apple Hits $1 Trillion Apple hitting a $1 trillion market cap could boost consumer sentiment on the stock market. AAPL is larger than 3 entire sectors. The utilities have a market cap of $700 billion. The materials and telecom sectors have market caps of $653 billion and $492 billion respectively. T
