Real Recession Numbers Are Here: They Are Ugly Labor market numbers are starting to come out. They are extremely bad. Let’s start with the March Challenger job cut announcements report. Keep in mind, the April report will likely be worse. Specifically, in March there were 222,288 new job cut announc
Big Decline On Wednesday Stocks started the quarter on a sour note. S P 500 fell 4.41%. If the market falls in April, that will be its 4th straight month of declines. We're not expecting a weak month because the uncertainty that is hurting the market will be lifted by the end of it. We will know
Coming Earnings Decline A principle uncertainty in markets is when the number of COVID-19 cases will stop spiking in America. That helps investors figure out when the shutdowns will end and when the economy will restart. We need to know all this to determine where earnings will be in 2020. It’s easy
Disastrous Quarter Ends With A Small Selloff This week has been calm so far. S P 500 fell 1.6% and the VIX fell 3.54 to 53.54 on Tuesday. We can expect the VIX to fall even on down days. Panic can’t last forever. It is a short emotional outburst. If stocks fall, they won’t crash like
Dividend Cuts Coming Fast Furious As of March 30th, 24 companies suspended their buyback programs in 2020 for a total of over $200 billion. Financials have led the charge with $127 billion in cuts. Financials probably have led the charge because of their energy loans. Obviously, the entire economy i
Another Rally Yes, technically Monday’s rally followed a decline on Friday. But the fact that stocks increased feels like we are in a winning streak since we didn’t get closer to last Monday’s low. S P 500 has increased in 5 of the past 6 trading days. It just missed reversing the entire selloff on
Hiring Slows In a shock to no one, the data shows hiring is slowing. The only companies that are hiring are the ones seeing more demand because of COVID-19 which is a select few. In this bucket you have necessities like groceries and healthcare. You also have online retail, but even Amazon is runnin
Best Rally Since 1931 Ends The stock market just had its best 3 day span since 1931. Gains were enormous off the low on Monday. It’s no surprise that stocks took a breather on Friday. Even if you’re a bull, you had to expect that to happen. Many were hoping for a down day with
Jobless Claims In Context Jobless claims are measured nominally, which means comparing them to the past isn’t apples to apples. Before COVID-19, claims were very low on a nominal basis and extraordinarily low on a population adjusted basis. It was by far a new record low. Now, we are in the opposite
Another Huge Rally The stock market has been on a rampage. It’s now up about 19% from the trough on March 23rd. Dow is up almost 23% which catalyzed the Wall Street Journal to say a new bull market is here. It's unlikely that 3 days of rapid gains makes a bull market. Even if
