By: Matt Garrott The story of the S&P 500 this year is the Magnificent 7. That is, the seven largest companies in the index by market cap (it’s 8 tickers because Google has two share classes). The S&P is up over 20% year-to-date, mainly because of these giants: All investment pros had [...]
By: Matt Garrott Investors have had to deal with the drumbeat of an increasingly negative media for years. Most of this should be filtered out as noise, but the recent attack on Israel was impossible to ignore. Words feel small, but our hearts go out to those dealing with fear, anger, and loss [...]
By: Matt Garrott Cash and commodities were the only places to hide in the third quarter as stocks and bonds both posted negative returns. The yield curve remains inverted. A government shutdown has been delayed, but looms behind daily headlines of legislative dysfunction. Strikes are hitting not only Hollywood and Las Vegas, but [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 gained 3.2% last month. Unlike the first half of the year, returns were spread across the index rather than concentrated in a handful of names as the S&P 500 Equal-Weight Index gained 3.4%. JPMorgan’s Dr. David Kelly says the Federal Reserve is fighting a battle it has [...]
By: Matt Garrott It’s been 15 months since the Federal Reserve started to raise interest rates. A streak of 10 hikes in a row came to an end at the recent June meeting. The market expects this to be a skip, not a stop or pause as the Fed expects another two hikes [...]
By: Matt Garrott The stock market in 2023 has been dominated by the 4 Comma Club, the Trillionaires* – Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Nvidia. Nvidia’s position in this elite group is not cemented in place as it has recently fallen back down to a mere $925 billion market cap. Schwab’s Liz Ann [...]
By: Matt Garrott One of the frustrating things about investing is that the data can tell you one thing while the market does the complete opposite. The markets can lag the data by months or even years. Other times they seem to be ahead of the data. Today we’re on the verge of [...]
By: Matt Garrott The headlines have been terrible. Inflation is high. The automobile and home loan markets are confused. A bank run centered on the global tech center of Silicon Valley ripped through the financial sector. How did the stock market respond? The S&P 500 gained 7.5% during the quarter. The last three [...]
By: Matt Garrott Silicon Valley Bank In an effort to prevent the default of Everything Everywhere All at Once, Federal regulators stepped in to cover depositors who held cash over the $250,000 FDIC insurance cap at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Regulators also shut down Signature Bank in New York City. Both banks had [...]
By: Matt Garrott One month into the New Year and one of our core investment beliefs was confirmed: Nobody can predict the markets. The Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index gained 3.1% and the S&P 500 rose 6.3%. The NASDAQ, which lost 32.4% last year, was up 10.7% on the month. International stocks popped [...]
