Perspectives

Inflation is starting to be noticed by everyone everywhere. We will not discuss the price of fuel which we expect will be north of $5.00 a gallon in California in the next few weeks. However, we do want to share a recent local “dining” experience. We were out to lunch the other day at a local Mexican restaurant that we have gone to for more than two decades, and we noticed the temporary copied paper menus on the table had replaced the regular menus. I always order the same thing at this plac… View More

U.S. equities finished last week mostly higher (S&P 500 +0.8%), coming off intraweek lows and rallying strongly on Friday. The S&P 500 moved into double-digit percentage loss territory several times before the end of the week rally. The market reacted negatively to the FOMC meeting, judging that the recent hawkish Fed repricing has more room to run. The Q4 earnings season also continued to prove mediocre, with supply disruptions and cost pressures showing up in too many reports. Best sec… View More

As we have mentioned over the last few months, we expect market volatility to increase in 2022. There are a number of reasons for our concern such as the long running bull market, real Inflation for the first time in more than 20 years and rising interest rates. Maybe our largest concern was the midterm elections while our other concerns are playing out. Midterm elections tend to have larger equity market corrections compared to non-midterm election years with an average intra-year decline of 19… View More

The first quarter of 2022 is slowing. There’s a clear shock to demand (eg, closures for schools, flights, cruises, etc). U.S. initial jobless claims rose to 286,000 in the Jan 15th week, with existing home sales dipping -4.6% m/m in Dec. However, not all the U.S. data were negative, with the Philly Fed index rising to 23.2 in Jan (offsetting the plunge in the NY Fed manufacturing index earlier in the week). Housing starts rose month over month in Dec and the NAHB housing market index remained … View More

Increased Market volatility absolutely has to do with inflation and all eyes are looking on how the Fed can catch up from recent mistakes. It has been claimed that the first casualty in any war is the truth. In the fullness of time, historians of future generations will be charged with determining whether this maxim was accurate when it came to the all-out war waged by policymakers against COVID-19. Certainly, in addition to the tragic loss of life due to the virus, there have been other public … View More

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