26 Feb 2024

Japan: The Taylor Swift of Stock Markets?

People often tell me not to worry about the stock market because it ‘always’ comes back. That’s true for the United States and most other developed markets, but for my whole career, it wasn’t true for the Japanese stock market, until now. Last week, the Nikkei 225 price-index crossed a level that it hadn’t seen since 1989. That’s a long, long time. I Googled the most famous person born in… Read More

20 Feb 2024

China’s Interesting Times

A few years ago, I was listening to a financial podcast, and the person being interviewed said something like this: “Look, I’ve got a big China overweight in my portfolio. Look how much they’re growing – they’re going keep doing that, and I just want a part of that.” He was clear that he hadn’t done a lot of research on China, but thought it was ‘obvious’ that they were… Read More

5 Feb 2024

Presidential Elections & Stocks

A lot of people are worried about the effect of the Presidential election on the stock market. It seems like no matter who you support, you’re worried that the other candidate will ruin everything. I have no intention of making any political comments of any kind, and the best way for me to allay any concerns without making half of the folks upset is to take a look at data…. Read More

29 Jan 2024

Trading Against Cramer Just Got Harder

Last March, I wrote about a new pair of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the bets of Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money, known as much for his bright lights, loud sounds, and yelling as he is for his investment advice or track record (here’s a link to my article). One of the ETFs would short his stock picks, betting that the picks would fall, and the other went… Read More

22 Jan 2024

S&P 500 Enjoys Record (Close Back in December)

Woot Woot! We can surely celebrate that the S&P 500 is back at record levels as of last Friday. I updated a few charts (below), and noticed something interesting – actual investors in the S&P 500 were back in the money in mid-December thanks to dividends. I am celebrating as much as the next guy about the price improvement, but dividends are part of the equation, but they are often… Read More

8 Jan 2024

Amid Soft-Landing Talk, Leading Indicators Still Signal Recession

Last year at this time, I was heartily in the camp that the US would enter a recession in 2023. I’m always fine being wrong (it happens more than I care to admit), but I’m especially happy that we didn’t enter a recession. Part of my thinking is a chart that we will see a later in this Insight that shows the drawdown of Leading Economic Indicators. I won’t bury… Read More

2 Jan 2024

Happy New Year

Perhaps the subject line should have read: Happy Old Year! Today will be brief but take a moment to look at the charts below, which show the return for various stock and bond market indexes in the fourth quarter and for the year that was. The worst major asset class return was just shy of 10 percent, and the best was more than 26 percent – a result that almost… Read More

6 Nov 2023

Have Bonds Become More Volatile Than Stocks?

Before the big rally last week, a client asked me whether bonds had become more volatile than stocks. Although he was partially kidding, his point was right on: bonds have been volatile this year, especially in recent weeks. And the rally last week still adds to volatility, it’s just easier to stomach when prices are rising. To illustrate the rise on bond volatility, I calculate the 20-day rolling volatility of… Read More

18 Sep 2023

America’s Credit Rating

Earlier this year, when Congress seemed to come together and avoid a debt ceiling crisis, I listened to a podcast that said we would right back to the same problem in the fall. I didn’t pay much attention because I was annoyed with the government and the fall was months away. Although I am loving the cooler weather, I’m annoyed again because the deadline to deal avoid a government shutdown… Read More

21 Aug 2023

What’s Happening in China?

One of the sources of optimism entering 2023 was that China was finally “reopening” after their long and agonizing Zero-Covid lockdown. Not only is the China-related optimism long gone, but markets are increasingly worried about the economic situation there. Although a lot of the news relates to a vastly overindebted property company whose bonds are trading for 35 cents on the dollar, the issues are much greater. First, growth is… Read More