Friends,   Against a backdrop of good earnings and favorable economic conditions, stocks continue to push higher. The President made news in his comments to those gathering in Davos when he let all know his feelings about the oil prices (Saudi’s need to lower),...

Friends   More solid corporate earnings, including a blockbuster report from Netflix, helped move the market averages higher once again today. Other nice earnings gainers were P&G and Travelers. Again, we are expecting good numbers from most of corporate...

Friends   As snowmageddon 2025 hit here in the Houston area (it ended up not being that bad actually), stocks got the week off to a strong start for the bulls. Retreating bond yields and excitement about the new administration set the tone for a nice rally in...

Friends   In the end it was a very good week for stocks. Decent inflation data and a strong beginning to corporate earnings season helped stoke a little bullish sentiment after weeks of less than stellar action for the market averages.   By the close, the...

Friends   United Health and Apple put a lot of negative pressure on the Dow and the S&P, but overall stocks were mostly quiet throughout the trading session. Big bank earnings have been really good to start off earnings season, but I think what stocks are...

Friends   Today’s CPI release, added to yesterday's PPI release, helped investors get more comfortable with the current inflation picture. Though neither release was much different than expected, the worst-case scenario was averted. Bonds yields moved lower, and...

Friends   Today’s PPI number came in better than expected, up .2% in December instead of the .4% that analysts had expected. Remember that the producer price index measures inflation at the wholesale level. Core PPI was flat. Tomorrow, we get the CPI number and...

Friends   It was an odd day for the market averages. Stocks fell at the open only to slowly work into the positive territory (other than the Nasdaq) as the trading session wore on. Interest rates on the long end of the yield curve continue to draw the most...

Friends   U.S. payrolls rose by 256,000 in December which was quite a bit higher than the 155,000 that analysts had expected. The unemployment rate also fell to 4.1%, better than the 4.2% expected. Really good news for the economy, but not so much for stocks....

Friends   It was a quiet day for stocks as the 10-year Treasury note finally settled back a little in yield giving traders a bit of relief. As we have pointed out, market participants have had trouble dealing with the rise in longer term interest rates over the...

Friends   The bond market continues to be the catalyst for many of the stock market moves we have seen lately. Today, interest rates continued higher on stronger than expected economic news. In the past months, the Fed has cut the Fed Funds rate (short term...

Friends   Stocks got off to a nice start this morning, but as the trading session wore on the market averages continued to give up some of the gains. Again, a handful of stocks were the early winners led by Nvidia and Microsoft, but there wasn’t a whole lot of...

Friends   The first trading day of the new year was quite volatile as stocks moved higher at the open, fell firmly into negative territory then recovered some before the close. It was not really a surprise to see stocks like Apple fall today given the pent-up...

Friends   Well, 2024 is now officially in the books. We thought the conditions for stocks were going to be good for 2024 and they were. The market averages all moved higher, but not all market averages are created equal. The S&P was up over 23%, but the equal...

Friends   Stocks continue to sputter into year end. We have now given back the gains achieved after the election in November and are simply limping into year end. In my 40 years of observing markets the sell-off at year end has become more and more common,...