Friends The stock market continued its downward path as investors seem to be sending a message to politicians that it is time to get things done. As I mentioned yesterday, the markets will not be patient with procrastinating politicians. But, the important thing for...

Friends The election is over and we are left with government that is basically the same it was yesterday. No change in the White House and very little change in Congress. All that money spent and basically we are right where we started. Oh well, as we say around here,...

Friends Here are my two interpretations of today’s rally (and it was a nice one indeed). The first interpretation is that traders believe that Obama will win, and that means more of the same of what has moved the markets in the past three years (easy money and...

Friends Yes, the election is tomorrow and I will be glad when it is over and behind us, but I wanted to begin today’s note with a special “thank you” to Carolyn Ilse who is going to be leaving CHJ in a couple of weeks. Carolyn was integral in helping to get this...

Friends Well, is everyone ready for the election – to be over? Yes, the political storytelling is getting real tiresome, but by next Wednesday it will all be behind us (at least I hope). Anyway, this morning’s employment report confirmed that things continue to get...

Friends We had a lot of economic news today including the ADP Employment Report, Weekly Jobless Claims, ISM Manufacturing Index and Consumer Confidence and the main takeaway is that on the whole, the domestic economic situation is strengthening. Sure, it is very...

Friends Well, as they try to put the pieces back together on the east coast, and our hearts are with them, the markets did get open and stocks did trade on this Halloween day. The powers that be really wanted to get the exchanges open today, and with a whole lot of...

Friends On the economic front, the consumer confidence number held steady which was somewhat encouraging, while the first look at 3rd quarter GDP (remember they revise it two more times) showed the economy growing at 2% which is a little higher than expected (don’t be...

Friends The markets were quiet today, as traders seem to be digesting all the earnings reports received this week as well as waiting for Apple and Amazon to report after the close. On the economic front, the durable goods number and the weekly unemployment claims both...

Friends With the election less than two weeks away and having been asked by many of you, I thought I might take a moment to discuss the market ramifications depending on who wins the White House. First let’s assume that President Obama wins a second term. Many of you...

Friends Yesterday the stock market was able to recover from an over 100 point loss. Today we weren’t so lucky. Fueled by more anemic earnings reports and anxiety about the pending fiscal cliff, stocks were down from the opening bell to the closing bell. There were a...

Friends Earnings season is at its peak this week and so far our concerns about earnings growth slowing have been verified. Unfortunately companies are struggling to meet or beat expectations both on the top line and the bottom line, and future guidance has been...

Friends It was 25 years ago today.  The stock market crashed. I remember the details like it was yesterday. I was in my third year in the business, parked in the “bullpen” at the Merrill Lynch office in Clayton, Missouri ( a suburb of St. Louis). We had these little...

Friends Well it looks like everyone got so caught up in the 25th anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash, that they wanted to do a re-enactment today. Hey this aint the Civil War- we don’t need no re-enactment. In reality the string of lousy earnings reports over...

Friends Today’s market was dominated by a mistaken earnings release by Google. Instead of coming after the close, Google’s earnings release was mistakenly disseminated midday, and the details were not good. Having missed the analyst’s estimates by a mile, the stock...