CHJ’s Elves Were Out
CHJ’s elves had a great time on their annual spree to help Santa with Toys for Tots. We hope we brought joy to some childrens’ Christmas memories with toys from Legos, Matchbox Cars and Scooters to Barbie music instruments and Easy Bake Ovens and sports equipment...
What A Week!
Friends, Coming off of a Thanksgiving week that was the worst for stocks in over 80 years, this week ends up also being one for the history books, but this time to the positive. A week that contained glimmers of hope out of Europe also included “pretty good” domestic...
A Day To Rest
Friends, We had some mixed numbers this morning with the jobless claims coming in a little higher than expected (back over 400,000), but the ISM manufacturing number (52.7) was better than expected. Of course, all this leads up to the non-farm payroll number tomorrow....
Santa is Loading His Sleigh
Friends, Take a Chinese cut in reserve ratio for banks, globally coordinated Central Bank intervention, a nice ADP employment number (206,000 jobs), a better than expected Chicago PMI number (62.6 vs. an expected 58.5), and a Fed Beige Book release indicating positive...
Little Follow Through
Friends Though somewhat sloppy, the markets did build on yesterday’s nice move as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 32 points to finish the day at 11,555. The S&P 500 was up 2.65 points to close at 1195. Gold was up $4 to finish the day at $1715 and oil was up...
Operation Homecooking
Scott and Jo Lynn Hofferkamp spent Thanksgiving showing their gratitude to our country’s soldiers by hosting two airmen from Lackland Air Force Base for Operation Homecooking. Each year the program places 2000-3000 airmen from basic training squadrons with families...
Good Start to the Week
Friends As we began trading today, the news was definitely on the positive side, as on the domestic front, retailers reported a very strong “Black Friday”. Even more importantly we had rumors/news out of Europe that the IMF might just have the bazooka needed to buy...
Quiet Black Friday
Europe continues to dominate the news cycle in terms of markets, as rising Italian rates along with a yield curve inversion continued to weigh on the minds of the few traders participating in this half day of trading. Volume was of course very light and it’s the type...
Thanksgiving Meals
During the holiday season, we at CHJ are grateful to have warm holiday meals with our families and wanted to help those who cannot afford to do the same. We filled up two heaping grocery carts at HEB with holiday goodies: stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans,...
Rampant Pessimism
Friends, It was another slow but difficult day for stocks, as traders just didn’t want to do any buying before the Thanksgiving holiday. The morning began with news that a German bund auction did not go well overnight and we were down right from the start. It’s one...
Slowdown Begins
Friends, Traders seem to be slowing things down as we get close to the Thanksgiving holiday. This morning we had the first revised look at 3rd quarter GDP and it was, indeed, reduced downward form the original 2.5% to 2%. That set the tone for a lower market in early...
Super-Committee Letdown
Friends, It’s hard to believe that anyone would be surprised that the “super-committee” was going to let us down this week, but traders decided to show their disapproval by selling stocks on Monday. Of course, Europe continues to wear down the psyche of the bulls with...
Quiet But Painful Week
Friends, As stocks meandered all day long and into the close, let’s just take a moment to review the current situation. Today’s Leading Economic Indicator (LEI) number was better than expected. Add that to recent numbers including better than expected October retail...
The Dreaded Triangle
Friends Stocks had another very difficult day, as a quiet morning once again turned into an ugly afternoon. After a decent initial unemployment claims number this morning followed by slightly better housing starts and building permits, not to mention an ok Philly Fed...
Who Pulled the Plug?
Friends Well, we were having a nice boring day when at about 2:00 pm the rating agency, Fitch, reported that U. S. banks could be downgraded if the European situation is not soon resolved favorably. Stocks which after an early decline had rallied to positive territory...