“Investors are putting on the recession trade.” – Tony Dwyer, Investment Strategist, FTN Midwest Securities Today’s trading is interesting. You’d think everything would be down big but it isn’t so. Three sectors are holding up well: Consumer Staples (XLP), Health Care…
“… the job market is losing momentum. That is critically important because income growth tied to the creation of new jobs has been a key source of support for the household sector….” – David Greenlaw, Morgan Stanley The BLS’s December…
There was an interesting little development this afternoon. The market seemed to bottom around 1:15pm EST and started to rally ahead of the Fed minutes scheduled to be released at 2:15pm EST. The S&P rallied about 14 points, from 1444…
“Listening to the commentary over the weekend and last week, most people were saying we’d skirt a recession, but this causes people to question that thought process.” – Steven Kroll Sr. (subscription required), Managing Director, Monness, Crespi & Hardt Stocks were…
“As the 2007 stock market roller coaster screeches to a close, one question above all has preoccupied investors: Will the bull market end in 2008?” – “The Bull: What’s To Be Its Fate In ’08?” (subscription required), “The Trader” Column,…
One of the arguments all of us will hear time and again as the new year begins is that 2008 will be a good year for stocks because it is a Presidential election year. Stocks have gone up 13 of…
A confluence of bad news combined to drive down stocks today. First, and most important, was the assasination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto (subscription required). This reminds everybody of the high level of geopolitical risk in our globalized economy. (If…
Tech stocks have been performing extremely well at year end, with the Nasdaq up for the 6th consecutive day today – S&P Tech (XLK) is up 4.24% over the same period. I sense some window dressing here as portfolio managers dress…
According to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse, retail sales for the holiday season (the day after Thanksgiving through midnight Monday) were up 3.6% – 2.4% excluding gas which is much higher this year compared to last (subscription required). That compares with 6.6% growth…
BeSpoke Investment Group has a post up on how the market has performed, on a yearly basis, after Christmas through the end of the year. Hard to draw conclusions from the data, but it looks like there is an upward…