By: Matt Garrott February came to a turbulent end with the S&P 500 down 3% or more during three trading sessions last week. The S&P 500 was down 8.23% for the month and 8.27% for the year. The 10-year Treasury yield is under 1.13% as a global flight to safety pushed yields down [...]
By: Matt Garrott Stocks were off by about 3% yesterday on fears that cases of coronavirus are accelerating outside of China. Should you worry? For the “general American public“, the answer is no, according to the CDC. Does that mean that only fools would be concerned by this? No. Identifying and dealing with [...]
By: Matt Garrott Would you let a groundhog invest on your behalf? That sounds silly, but at least Punxsutawney Phil has a track record. When he saw his shadow, stocks rose 72% of the time. Phil didn’t see his shadow this year. Does that mean sell? No. Stocks rise 73% of the time [...]
By: Matt Garrott What Happened in 2019 Some feared the near-bear drawdown of late 2018 was the beginning of the end of the bull market. Indeed, many market commentaries mention being “late in the market cycle”. Age will not signal the end of this bull, however. The S&P 500 gained 31.5% even as [...]
By: Matt Garrott Thanksgiving is a time for turkey, pumpkin spice everything, and – most importantly – reflection on what we are thankful for. This is also the time of year for the cliché awkward family argument, whether it’s about politics, bitcoin, or jockeying for who still has to sit at the kids’ [...]
By: Matt Garrott Saying the market hates uncertainty is cliché because uncertainty is the only constant in the market. Otherwise there would be no risk and returns would be miniscule. Lately, though, there have been three sources of outsized uncertainty: US/China trade, Brexit, and the Federal Reserve. October may have been the beginning [...]
By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 is up over 20% through September 30th. Real estate is up almost 28%. Even the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index is up over 8%. Unemployment is incredibly low at 3.7% and wage growth is picking up. Inflation is tame at under 2%. The United States, particularly relative to [...]
By: Matt Garrott Midway through August nearly every media outlet posted a RECESSION headline. Even the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a front-page story. The yield curve had inverted (the yield on shorter maturity bonds was higher than longer maturities), leading some to jump to the conclusion that a recession was imminent. After all, [...]
By: Matt Garrott With a trade war, the Fed’s rate cut, and election season ramping up (none of the challengers will say anything positive about the economy), you may be forgiven for thinking the investing environment is in shambles. However, even after the rough past week, the S&P 500 remains up nearly 15% [...]
By: Matt Garrott The stock market is either red-hot, extremely average, or still in recovery depending on your perspective. Let’s torture the data until it tells us what we want to hear. The red-hot stock market The S&P 500 is up 18.5% and we’re only halfway through 2019! Unemployment is incredibly low. Inflation [...]
