Value After Hours S04 E27: Small Value is Quality, Energy in Food, Financials and the Consumer  Read More

Last week we wrote to you about when to expect bear markets to end and we touched on the first day of big bank earnings.  Well, since then we’ve gotten earnings reports from Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Ally Financial.  These companies have access to an enormous amount of...Read More

When you are in the midst of a bear market, all the news is bad.  You are usually either in or about to be in a recession. Analysts that kept telling you to buy stocks at 50% higher prices, now tell you to sell the same stocks despite them being dramatically cheaper.  Economic data gets...Read More

During bear markets, it is not uncommon for market participants to be focused on if there could be another 10-15% downside, regardless of the fact that the market is far cheaper than it has been in several years when they were willing to invest aggressively.  Bear markets bring out the biggest pessimists, peddling the most...Read More

Today there were headlines that one of the premier growth funds, Tiger Global Management is down 52% this year.  This has been one of the hottest funds of the last decade, buying the flashiest growth stocks with little regard to valuations.  Tiger’s aggressive strategy was richly rewarded over the last few years while value struggled...Read More

This morning, the WSJ reported that Warren Buffett has been on an aggressive buying spree during this bear market.  There is a link to the market below.  Buffett has been buying value stocks such as Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and Hewlett-Packard to name a few.  When he is buying on the stocks, he isn’t predicting that...Read More

  Today’s CPI inflation data came in hot at 8.3%, down slightly from the previous report, but higher than expectations. Inflation is rampant in all the key areas that impact our daily lives such as food, energy, shelter and transportation.  The sting of higher prices and the disruption emerging from the Chinese lockdowns has the...Read More

I hope that all of you who celebrate had a wonderful Easter last week. I just wanted to provide a quick update, as the markets have been quite tumultuous of late. We are done with Big Bank earnings for the 1st quarter of 2022.  The overall message was enormously positive.  Both consumer and commercial credit...Read More

2022 is shaping up to be quite the crazy year.  While this horrible war in Ukraine dominates media headlines, I can’t help but feeling like inflation might be the dominant theme of the next decade.  Using “government” numbers, inflation is running at about 7.9%.  Shelter is the single biggest component of CPI at 33% of...Read More

Yesterday’s CPI report showed prices up 7.9% YoY, which was the highest reading since 1982.  Even more concerning, this was before the impacts of the Russian/Ukraine war is reflected in the data.  Market volatility is exceptionally high and pessimism is quite pervasive.  There are legitimate fears that inflation in excess of wage growth could cause...Read More