Stocks remain in no man’s land, with neither side making much progress. This probably helps to explain why the market doesn’t feel much like a bull or bear. From a technical perspective, we are still in a bear market but remain in a tight trading range. The S&P...
Corporate earnings season for Q1 is now about halfway completed. So far, modest expectations have been exceeded. Coming in, investors expected a 6.3% drop in profits. Now a 4.2% decline is expected. Here are year-over-year earnings forecasts for the rest of 2023...
The S&P 500 had a solid month in March; up 3.5%. But not everything rallied in March. Small caps and mid-caps were down 3-5%. Only 3 of 11 equity sectors are up March YTD. And high quality stocks have been lagging all year as shown by the difference in...
BANK FAILURES… MORE TO COME? The “higher for longer” narrative was erased last week in the blink of an eye with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Systemic risk to the financial system is one thing that will stop the Federal Reserve’s current rate hike...
THE WAR AGAINST INFLATION HITS A SPEED BUMP Six weeks ago we wrote in the January mid-month commentary that the Fed was winning the war against inflation. If we look at their progress since last year’s peak inflation that is still true. But January hit a snag. ...
