Friends Stocks continue to climb to new highs as we gear up for a busy week of economic news including an FOMC meeting which begins tomorrow. Now, we don't expect a rate hike at this meeting, but we might get the beginning of the balance sheet unwinding. I'm sure the...
Friends Despite a lousy retail sales number (could be affected by Hurricanes) and more drama from the North Koreans, stocks still advanced to new highs. It appears that the bears just can't get a break, as despite all types of headline risk, stocks continue to forge...
Friends Stocks ended the day mixed, with only the Dow sporting a modest gain. For the first time in a while, the CPI number came in at the higher end of the analysts' estimates, which may allow the Fed to proceed with the balance sheet reduction program without...
Friends While the President huddled with members of both parties discussing tax reform, stocks drifted quietly higher. There was very little volatility to speak of as market participants seem to be searching for the next catalyst. As mentioned on Monday, before...
Friends The big news of the day was Apple unveiling its new products, including 3 new phones and a new watch which doesn't need to be tethered to a phone. Typically, Apple shares rise as anticipation about the new products builds. Then, when the products are...
Friends Florida got hit bad by hurricane Irma, but it wasn't quite the destructive blow that many had feared. Add that to the fact the North Koreans didn't fire any missiles or do additional nuclear tests over the weekend, and market participants were poised and...
Friends As Irma bears down on Florida, the markets seem to be somewhat on hold. While everyone keeps an eye on the storm, we'll also hope that nothing disturbing happens this weekend with the North Korean situation. We'll just have to stay tuned for all of it. In...
Friends Stocks were mostly quiet today other than shares of Disney (a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average) which suffered from an early earnings warning. Other than that everyone seems focused on just where Hurricane Irma will hit and what kind of damage could...
Friends As our city of Houston attempts to recover, Irma is now assaulting islands in the Caribbean and threatening Florida and beyond. That would have been the biggest news of the day had President Trump not made a deal with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi on...
Friends Was it "September is a bad month for stocks"? Or, how about Irma bearing down on Florida? Perhaps it was the North Koreans becoming more nuclear capable. Maybe it was a lack of confidence that anything positive can come out of the fiscal side of the equation...
Friends September got off to a decent start for stocks despite a less than stellar jobs report. 156,000 new jobs were created in August and the unemployment rate came in at 4.4%. Average hourly earnings continue to tick up but at a snail's pace. Fed watchers seem to...
Friends Stocks rallied on this last day of August, which helps the market averages actually show gains for August (which is often a difficult month for stocks). Though we continually get headlines that would concern even the most optimistic investor, it appears the...
Friends It has been several very trying days for our great city, and I hope all of you are well. The markets have been mostly quiet this week. The North Korean's launched a missile over Japan on Monday afternoon, and stocks sold off early on Tuesday morning, but...
Friends You know the old saying, the talk of tax reform cooperation giveth and the the talk of government shutdowns and debt ceilings taketh away. After yesterday's healthy rally, stocks gave a portion of it back as much of the "good feelings" somewhat melted away. ...
Friends Well, today's stock market rally was a bit of a surprise. Just the hint that there might be some meeting of the political minds with regards to tax reform seemed to fire up the animal spirits (or scare the shorts a bit) of market participants. Whatever the...
