The S&P 500 closed out its worst January since March of 2020, declining by 5.3%, despite two strong rallies to end the year.  The Nasdaq fared even worse, declining by 9%.  Stalwart stocks such as Microsoft, Netflix and Nvidia even declined 7.5%, 19%, and 17%, respectively.  The primary culprits for the selloff are concerns relating...Read More

Stock market volatility has continued with a vengeance throughout January as inflationary concerns, and the coinciding likely interest rate increases to combat it, are front and center on investors’ minds.  In addition, while the economy is still reasonably strong, how durable would it be in a higher rate environment?  Throw into that mix geopolitical uncertainty...Read More

It was quite a week for the markets with the Nasdaq dropping 7.6%, the S&P 500 5.7%, and the Dow 4.6%.  The Nasdaq is now down 15.1% from its November high and is off 12% YTD.  Staggeringly, 45% of Nasdaq equities are off 50% from their highs.  There were not many places for solace as...Read More

Market volatility in January has continued with the Nasdaq now down in excess of 11% from its high’s, and the S&P 500 down 7.1%.  Once again, the damage in the market is understated by the indices, as we are currently seeing huge numbers of stocks down 40-80% from their highs.  Fortunately, value stocks have held...Read More

I thought it would be helpful to share an options trade in real time, to give you an idea how it works.  Keep in mind, most junk bonds are yielding around 4% and the 10-year Treasury sits at about 1.7%.  One stock that we like long-term is Lending Club (LC).  This is a fintech company...Read More

Happy New Year and I hope that you have a wonderful and healthy holiday season.  The year is off to an excellent start as value stocks have started to catch fire.  Bond yields have risen quite dramatically in the first few days of the year, which has caused the expensive tech stocks to sell off,...Read More

Today the Case/Shiller housing price data came out and it showed prices up nearly 20% YoY. Brent crude oil touched $80 per barrel and is on course for its best month since February. Treasury yields have risen quite dramatically over the last week, with the 10-year now above 1.5%, the highest since June.  Natural gas...Read More

Rob Arnott of Research Affiliates is one of the best investment strategists around. He wrote a fantastic article on the opportunity in value investing, so instead of going on about it, I’m just going to let you read it to get a good grasp of the opportunity in front of us.  Here was one quote...Read More

Global markets have sold off pretty hard to start the week.  Most of the narrative surrounds the Chinese property market and one of their largest developers, Evergrande.  China’s government is clamping down on leverage and demanding many industries to buy in, literally, to their social objectives via cash “donations”, cheaper housing, etc.  Both the Shanghai...Read More

Today the August jobs report came out and was quite disappointing.  The U.S. only added 235,000 jobs, which was well short of expectations that were for over 700,000 new jobs.  Fears regarding the Delta variant likely had a role in this big miss.  Many businesses I’ve talked to have expressed immense frustration about a lack...Read More