The six large cap stocks (FB, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, NFLX, and MSFT), which now compose 22% of the S&P 500 (vs. 10% five years ago) are, amazingly, up about 4% YTD as of Friday April 17. The S&P 500, itself, closed Friday, down only -11% YTD (and only -15% below its all-time peak), even in the face of the most severe Recession (Depression?) since the 1930s. And, Wall Street is raving that …Read More
The Shape Of Things To Come: ‘V’ Or ‘L’ Recovery
What do -38%, -34%, -30%, and -25% have in common? If you guessed that these are the Q2 real GDP forecasts from the major financial houses (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan), you would be correct. Incredible as it may seem, we are likely headed for a drop in Q2 real GDP in that magnitude, and the just passed Q1 quarter looks to be somewhere near high negative single digits. …Read More
The Shape Of Things To Come: ‘V’ Or ‘L’ Recovery
What do -38%, -34%, -30%, and -25% have in common? If you guessed that these are the Q2 real GDP forecasts from the major financial houses (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan), you would be correct. Incredible as it may seem, we are likely headed for a drop in Q2 real GDP in that magnitude, and the just passed Q1 quarter looks to be somewhere near high negative single digits. …Read More
The Recession Has Arrived, & with a Vengeance
For some time, I have outlined the growing softness in the U.S. and world economies. Most of the recent data is pre-virus, and are generally meaningless. The numbers we will get for March will be awful, but the worst is yet to come. An example of March’s data is from the Philly Fed. The print of their Manufacturing Index was -12.7 for March, down a record amount from the +36.7 …Read More
The “Avoidance” Reaction
Preamble I received an email from my travel agent last Monday (March 2) informing me that, because Italy had been raised to a Travel Level 3 by the CDC (strongly advised not to travel there), our vacation to Italy (March 12-22) had to be postponed, else we risked being quarantined upon our return. In addition, the previous Friday, two corporate meetings in my immediate schedule for the week in the …Read More
Corona, Corona, Corona Bonds Really Do Have More Fun!
The equity market finally showed some sensitivity to the effects of the coronavirus (Covid-19) last week with the S&P 500 falling 1.25% from its record high close on Valentine’s day for the holiday shortened week. The leading issue which dominated every news cycle (except for the Democratic debate for a few hours) was Covid-19 and the economic uncertainties surrounding it. Markets rose on news or speculation that infection cases were …Read More
