If you were watching CNBC or Bloomberg television yesterday, you saw that the ‘big news’ of the day was that the NASDAQ market crossed 5,000 for the first time since the peak of the tech bubble. Although the financial news media loves to celebrate when indexes cross round numbers (think 2,000 for the S&P 500 or 18,000 for the Dow Jones Industrial Average), they don’t do a whole lot for… Read More
Which sector returns were better last year, healthcare stocks or utilities? There’s no question that both had great years, up 25.26 and 28.94 percent respectively, compared to 13.66 percent for the S&P 500. The question, though, asks which is better, and I think the answer depends a little on what you care about. If the answer is straight performance, then clearly, utilities won by 3.68 percentage points. The following chart… Read More
The talking heads on CNBC have been talking a lot about how the first few days of trading this January are a lot like the first few days of last year: the polar vortex, nervousness about the economy and sharply falling stock prices. In fact, that’s all true, but I’m hard pressed to draw any implication from the similarities. First of all, we’re talking about five data points – almost nothing… Read More
Last year was a mixed bag for stocks. The headline index that most professional indexes follow, the S&P 500 had a great year, up 13.68 percent. I looked at all of the annual returns since 1926, the year when good quality data is thought to begin, and found that 2014 ranks 46th out of 89 years, putting it in the 51st percentile – basically the center of the distribution of returns. Early… Read More
A friend of mine came into some money recently and said that he was wary about actually investing the funds because the market is at an all-time high. He said that he knew he wasn’t supposed to time the market, but wanted to get my thoughts before pulling the trigger. I told him what I tell everyone: as long as your time horizon is sufficiently long, it’s okay to go… Read More
On Wednesday, I wrote that I was ‘double shocked’ to see that the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note had fallen to 2.175 percent, so imagine my surprise yesterday when the yield fell to 1.86 percent – triple shocked! What was to blame for the steep initial losses and sudden (though not complete) recovery? No one really knows, actually, but here are some of the more credible theories across… Read More
Back in February, I wrote that the stock market was overvalued and cited metrics like the Shiller PE ratio and Tobin’s Q that show the market is high relative to history. At the time, I concluded by saying that timing the market is notoriously difficult, so pick your stock/bond allocation and stick with it through thick and thin. (Click here for the article) A few people called or emailed back… Read More
Since taking over Daily Insights last July 1, the market has gone up steadily at an annualized pace of 19.69 percent through the close of business yesterday. In addition to the substantial gains, volatility for the S&P 500 has been uncharacteristically low. Naturally, I’m appreciative that we’ve all been able to enjoy a straight-up market, but I’m also realistic and know that it won’t always be like this. It’s normal… Read More
For the 30th time this year, the S&P 500 closed at an all-time high. Yesterday was an even bigger deal because it crossed a big round number: 2,000. While that shouldn’t mean anything special, it does. Investors are humans that are subject to all kinds of psychological biases and round number attachment (my name) seems to be one of them. If you go to Wikipedia, you can get a… Read More
This is the bull market that just won’t quit. Just a few weeks ago, when stocks dipped it appeared we were finally getting the correction that we’ve all collectively been expecting for years now. It’s unusual to go this long without a 10 percent correction or a 20 percent drop, which is the typical definition of a bear market. The decline that we just went through was less than four… Read More
