Friends   The bulls must be anticipating a very rewarding earnings season. Stocks moved higher today and were able to hold onto juicy gains for the entire trading session. All this despite interest rates moving higher with the 10-year Treasury note’s yield moving...

Friends   The bulls tried to muster a nice rally this morning, but when a less than enthusiastic consumer confidence number came out at 9:00 the rally fizzled, and stocks struggled to find a footing the rest of the trading session.   By the close, the Dow Jones...

Friends   Bond yields moved higher after a little hotter than expected CPI report this morning, and as has been the case lately when rates rise stocks fall. Luckily for the bulls the decline was muted as there was a little buying later in the trading session.   For...

Friends   Bond yields fell quite a bit today (bond prices moving higher) which helped stocks maintain a solid footing for the moment. Yesterday’s stock rally while the bond market was closed appears to have mostly priced in the anticipated (given the global events)...

Friends   Stocks understandably sold off at the open this morning after unrest in the Middle East transpired over the weekend. It is difficult to focus on the stock market when there is so much human suffering going on around the world but that is our job after all....

Friends   Did I mention that jobs day can be volatile? Remember, analysts were expecting that about 170,000 new jobs were created in September and most market participants would have been fine with a number less than that. Surprise, surprise. There were 336,000 new...

Friends   Today’s weekly jobless claims was disappointing to the bulls because it signals that the jobs market continues to remain stubbornly strong. I know that sounds goofy, but that was the narrative today. We’ll get a full look at the labor market tomorrow with...

  Friends   Get interest rates and oil prices to fall a little bit and you can have a stock rally. That’s what we saw today. And speaking of interest rates, the climb higher is likely to be stalled at some point soon. That doesn’t mean that a secular long-term bear...

Friends   Stocks tried to move higher on the first morning of trading for the new quarter, but when the 10-year Treasury note yield inched higher and touched 4.70%, stocks sold off. Remember, it can be confusing when market commentators talk about a move in bonds....

Friends   Unfortunately, somewhat as predicted, September was not a good month for stocks. For that matter, August wasn’t very good either making the 3rd quarter of 2023 very challenging for the bulls. If you take out the magnificent seven stocks (Apple, Microsoft,...

Friends There was a valiant effort by the bulls to reverse a sizable early day selloff, but in the end higher oil prices and higher interest rates were just too much of a headwind to stocks. Oil prices have moved up for weeks now and $100 per barrel WTI appears to be...

Friends Comments from Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon both indicating that the Fed may need to raise interest rates quite a bit higher if inflation persists added fuel to the fire already burning down stocks at the moment....

Friends   Higher long-term interest rates and higher energy prices have been kryptonite for stocks recently, but the bulls were able to squeeze out a small gain in the market averages today despite bond yields rising on the long end of the yield curve. All in all,...

Friends   Stocks have been very much reacting to the bond market lately, and as rates have moved higher, stocks have moved lower. Yesterday afternoon and today we saw rates move back down slightly and that seemed to settle stocks a bit for the moment (although there...

Friends   As expected, the Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates today leaving the Fed Funds rate at 5.25% -5.50%. Also, as expected, Chair Powell indicated that there is a possibility of one more quarter point rate hike before year end (from either the...