The stock market has reacted very negatively to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s hawkish interest rate outlook, with the S&P declining by roughly 6% over the last 4 days.  Weaker economic data and declining commodity prices gave market participants hope that the Fed might pivot, pointing to less rate hikes, but Powell talked a tough game,...Read More

Equity and bond markets had a brutal week as today’s CPI report confirmed that inflation has accelerated to a 40-year high, which has traders speculating that the Fed will have to raise rates faster than expected.  In addition to that data, we saw the lowest Consumer Confidence number in the surveys history, which dates back...Read More

It’s that time of the quarter where we see what many of the biggest and most successful investors have been buying.  Needless to say, I was very pleased to see that Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway had bought sizable stakes into both Citigroup and Paramount, and a smaller stake in Ally Financial.  These are three...Read More

The Nasdaq is now officially in a bear market as defined by a 20% decline from the highs, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones indices are in corrections, with losses greater than 10%.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the economic sanctions brought against Russia in response are a major deal for the global...Read More

In our last newsletter written on Friday, we wrote about just how much risk market participants are having to take to target a 7.5% return, mostly due to how low yields are on bonds.  The bailout has been that equity markets have performed exceptionally well, but of course now we are starting at valuations that...Read More

I hope everyone is holding up okay.  We’ve seen some encouraging employment numbers coming off those massive layoffs, but clearly the economy still has a lot of work to do to get close to recovering from where it was.  This month we should see a new stimulus bill negotiated, which will surely be very contentious. ...Read More

2020 has certainly been a tragedy of epic proportions on just about any level imaginable.  There is no sugarcoating that.  When you have tens of thousands of people dying from a new virus, and economies shut down across the world, it is tough to feel cheery, especially when you sprinkle in record unemployment.  The stock...Read More

This year has been wild in many terrible ways.  One extremely painful phenomenon (for a value investor) has been the massive growth outperformance relative to value.  Coming into the year, we were at the widest relative spread between growth and value since 2000.  After the pandemic tanked stocks more closely related to the economy, the...Read More

April 16th, 2020 is a big day for our country.  There is now a plan to begin reopening the country.  The decision will ultimately fall to the Governors of the states.  The pace of reopening will be determined by the situation impacting each state, as opposed to one process for the whole country.  Reopening in...Read More

This week, earnings began coming out in abundance, starting with many of the Big Banks.  I’ve gotten through J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup.  Research reports will be forthcoming.  I will tell you that I am incredibly encouraged.  All 4 banks were profitable, despite posting dramatic and expected reserves to account for...Read More