Let’s continue to look at this earnings period because it will direct stocks for the next few months unless North Korea and the debt ceiling bring new headline risk. As you can see from the chart below, the firms that had more international exposure had better revenue growth and margin expansion (th
The earnings season is now about 90% over, so when we look at the results, they are close to what the finalized ones will look like. The biggest lever of this great earnings season remains margins. The latest results show margins were 10.22%. That’s higher than the previous cycle high which was 10.1
Geopolitical Risk The market calmed down on Friday which was slightly surprising because of the North Korean threat. Investors didn’t have a problem going into the weekend with their money invested in stocks even though the situation could become volatile again. The S P 500 was up 0.13% and the Nasd
The all-important CPI was released this week. It showed more of the same disinflationary trend we have been seeing in the past 6 months. I have been looking for an uptick in inflation heading into the back half of the year because of the base effect comparisons oil has since oil fell at this time
The theme with Snap stock is that the company shouldn’t have gone public because it doesn’t have a business model that allows it to be profitable. The company decided to go public because user growth was slowing. That allowed it to raise more money this year than if it went public next year. In the
Will The Swiss Buy More Stocks? An interesting dynamic at play is what will happen when the ECB and the Fed start to reverse course and taper and unwind respectively. We’ve discussed this many times in articles. The new wrinkle to this mix is what the Swiss Central bank will do especially if stocks
Economic News Let’s continue looking into the NFIB survey to get a complete grasp of the state of small businesses as of July. The chart below is the most important one in the survey as it shows the credit conditions small businesses face. Credit conditions remain solid as they inch up to the highs
Just because valuation is important as a predictor of future results, that doesn’t mean there’s only one way of doing it. Investing is an art and a science. If it was just a science, everyone could predict where it was going so everyone’s returns would match. Obviously, cash flaws and earnings are t
The biggest story of the year is probably the decline in inflation. The other top stories of a rising stock market with no volatility and the decline in the dollar are all related. Lower inflation allows for stock valuations to increase and the Fed to stay dovish. A dovish Fed hurts the dollar. Earl
The top news event of the day on Monday was that the Dow hit its 9th straight record high as it has been up 10 straight days. The chart below shows that the 9-day streak is the 3rd longest ever. The most remarkable part is that there are 4 streaks in past two years which
