Perspectives

4Q Earnings Season Could Be Choppy If Friday was any indication of how the earnings season will pan out, it could be a choppy one for investors. Earnings growth is largely expected to be robust along with sales growth. However, the headline figures are deceiving because energy is expected to recover significantly, propping up the S&P figure. Ex. Energy earnings growth is expected to be closer to 15% - still a respectable number. NTM EPS Still Marching Higher From a macro perspective, we w… View More

In our Monday reports, we always strive to first highlight what is most important for clients, but frankly, we debated what exactly that should be this morning. There was a long list of contenders… the breakout in global yields, the subtle weakness in USD, the momentum surge from the Banks, the strength out of the Energy stocks, the outperformance of Staples vs. Discretionary, the weakness in Software, the persistent selling of the market’s most speculative corners, or the breakdown in small… View More

S&P 500 Finishes 2021 Up 28.7% With the S&P 500 finishing the year up 28.7% on a total return basis, 2021 ranked as the 21st best year for the index since 1926. It was also the 36th time that the total return was greater than 20%. More importantly, in the year following a +20% return, the S&P on average has returned 11.3%, with 69% of the readings being positive. 2021 Saw The Fourth Smallest Drawdown Since 1987 For The S&P Those investors who entered 2021 with a bearish outloo… View More

Sunday morning Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced he will not support President Biden’s Build Back Better spending and tax package as is currently written. This is a major event that has broad investment implications from taxes on high-net-worth individuals to global companies to sectors such as renewable energy, healthcare, and consumer discretionary. In our experience, sometimes legislation has to fail before it can succeed. Obamacare died three times before ultimately passing. But the ta… View More

A Reminder on Charitable Gifting As the end of the year and the holiday season approaches, we will all see an uptick in the number of charitable solicitations arriving in our mailboxes and by email. Since some charities sell their contributor lists to other charities, and frequent contributors may find themselves besieged by requests from all sorts of charities with which they are not familiar. Watch Out for Charity Scams – You need to be careful, as scammers out there are pretending to be l… View More

Real interest rates appear too low for an economy growing solidly, with inflation accelerating. Numerous data series are supporting the idea that the U.S. is in the neighborhood of full employment, but with (still) emergency monetary policy. U.S. weekly jobless claims have likely been affected by seasonal adjustment issues in the past several weeks, but with the 4 week average trending significantly lower, the clear message is that the labor market continues to heal. With more than 11 million cu… View More

We continue to watch for updates on the global health situation, which will inform the policy response. “Initial data from a major hospital complex in South Africa’s omicron epicenter show that while Covid-19 case numbers have surged, patients need less medical intervention … Most originally sought treatment for ailments unrelated to the coronavirus and were discovered to have it in testing required for admission.” (Bloomberg) In the meantime, the U.S. economic data have shown momentum … View More

Late last week, President Biden announced he was going to release 55 million barrels of oil from our strategic oil reserve to combat high energy prices and inflation. Because we currently use 18mm Barrels of oil per day in the U.S. we are confident there will have to be further actions to solve the high price of oil (and its contributions to the inflation we have been seeing over the last few months). Although the announced policy attempts to bring down energy prices, we don't believe it will be… View More

There was a growth scare in 3Q (especially in the U.S. and China), but as we move through 4Q growth looks to be reaccelerating. Yet price gains are continuing. U.K. CPI inflation rose to 4.2% y/y in Oct. The stagflation scare has morphed into a “sticky” inflation concern in numerous locations. “A trio of policy makers – Vice Chairman Richard Clarida, Governor Christopher Waller and St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard – signaled … that the topic of a faster taper m… View More

We came across an interesting article from one of our research providers this week and thought we would share it with you. This piece makes an interesting argument for why commodities and materials may be among the better performing investments for the next few years. Although so much of the media’s coverage these days seems to focus on social unrest or geopolitical conflict, there are still nuggets of information that may help identify investment opportunities. Since the start of quantitativ… View More