Stock Markets and the Economy
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The Next Phase of the Economic Cycle Begins
Important things are happening in the economy and markets. After years of providing massive liquidity, the central banks are shifting gears. The Federal Reserve has been tightening for several years and other major central banks are either tightening or leaning toward it. Also, in the last few months, the economic cycle moved to the late phase after […]
The Changing S&P 500
The market rally the last few years has been uneven, and that’s led to technology stocks dominating the S&P 500. S&P doesn’t rebalance the S&P 500 index on a regular basis. It generally lets the market do that, as the weight of different stocks and especially sectors changes over time. Sometimes the changes can be […]
Bob’s Journal
Highlighting a Spectacular Earnings Season Earnings season for the fourth quarter of 2017 ended last week, and it was an outstanding season. A key point to keep in mind is that analysts increased their estimate forecasts through the quarter as the economic data became stronger. In fact, the rate of forecast increases was the most […]
The Dog That Didn’t Bark
What was a unique feature of the recent stock market sell- off? Give yourself a prize if you said the limited action in the bond market, especially high-yield and corporate bonds. High-yield bonds are correlated more with equities than with government bonds, so when stocks have a correction, there’s usually a jump in high-yield bond […]
It Looks Like a Typical Correction
The recent correction shook up investors, and that will be good for the markets in the coming months. Before the correction, stock indexes had been on an extended upward climb. The climb became very steep in January. Importantly, technical measures indicated stocks not only were overbought, but extremely overbought. That means the index was more […]
Finally, a Significant Market Decline
I didn’t mean to put a hex on the stock markets last week. In last Thursday’s Bob’s Journal, I wondered how investors would react to the next big decline in stocks. I pointed out that a decline of more than 500 points on the Dow would be only a 2% decline. However, such a decline […]
The Market Melt-Up
Stock indexes had an amazing start to 2018, so it shouldn’t be a surprise they closed January with consecutive down days. Before Jan. 30, the S&P 500 had 350 trading days without consecutive daily declines of 0.5% or more each. That’s a record by a wide margin. Fewer than a handful of such S&P 500 […]
Where the Real Action Is
Investors who are focused on U.S. stocks are missing a lot. It is true that U.S. stocks are off to one of the strongest starts ever to a calendar year. But savvy investors should be focusing elsewhere, specifically on the weakening U.S. dollar and the international stock markets. The dollar continues to be weak […]
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Warren Buffett
