Redbook Same Store Sales Growth Falls The economy is faced with higher COVID-19 cases and no stimulus. Good news is the labor market is improving. Question is how much it can improve in the face of rising cases, hospitalizations, potential shutdowns, and changes to behavior. This economy dealt with
Vaccine Causes A Frenzy Monday was the craziest factor day of the year. It was one of the craziest factor days ever on multiple fronts. Even though the action was shocking, it’s what you’d expect given the news. Prior to Monday, the COVID-19 situation looked grim. Currently, there are 59,275 people
Job Cuts Fall There were many media reports about new job cuts in October. Thesis was that we are entering into another wave of weakness like the spring. In hindsight, it’s not surprising the economy didn’t enter into a sharp slowdown because it didn’t in July when COVID-19 was worse. To be clear, C
Unchanged Large Caps (Great Week) Large caps barely moved on Friday as we ended a very strong week. S P 500 and Nasdaq were up 7.3% and 9% this week as they had their best week since April. This was the biggest election week gain since FDR was elected in 1932. That only occurred because of
ADP Wrong Yet Again ADP report was too negative again. October jobs report was very solid. Job creation in September was revised up from 661,000 to 672,000. Even better, private sector job creation was revised up by 15,000 to 892,000. Furthermore, in October there were 638,000 jobs added which beat
Cannabis New Highs Across the country there was cannabis ballot initiatives that voters had a chance to cast their ballots on. In every instance, the voice of the people opted to expand the use of cannabis in their state. The ballot initiatives include for both recreational use and medicinal use. A
Insane Euphoria The stock market reached a euphoric stage on Thursday. On Wednesday, tech dominated the market. On Thursday, small caps joined the fun in what could only be described as extreme euphoria. Election hedges were unwound leading to big gains this month. That's not saying stocks won’t eve
Decent Jobless Claims Report All things considered, this was an ok jobless claims report. Continued claims fell more than PEUCs plus extended benefits rose and non-seasonally adjusted initial claims fell. That sounds great but continued claims didn’t fall that much more than those benefits programs.
Guide to Using the VIX Volatility Spread (VVS) We had an open house yesterday at TheoTrade and it was great to have so many people join us. It’s nice to give people a look behind the curtain of what we do. If you participated, you saw Don Kaufman walk through a trading strategy called the
Massive Sector Rotation To Tech Healthcare Presidential Senate election caused a massive sector rotation. Premise is that there won’t be a tax hike because the GOP won the Senate, but there won’t be a grand stimulus either. That’s perfect for the long bond and tech. It’s terrible for the banks, cycl
