Powell Pivoted & Small Caps Loved it
Jay Powell blinked, finally. Powell and the FOMC have been dead wrong according to my work. They were wrong to wait to hike rates and they are wrong in waiting to cut them. Frankly, I always prefer to be a little early than late and forced to play catch up. The markets don’t like and the economy certainly doesn’t like that. On Friday in what was Jay Powell’s likely last speech from the Jackson Hole symposium, he opened the door […]
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Date: August 25, 2025
Powell To Pivot – Markets Poised For More Upside
Fed Chair Jay Powell’s last Jackson Hole speech is here. It’s the only big news event of the week. Markets are expecting a more dovish Powell and an interest rate cut in September. While I do not think Powell will turn fully dovish, I do think he will give the market some of what it wants. With the last inflation report hotter than expected it would be crazy for Powell to ignore it. He also can’t ignore the weakening employment […]
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Date: August 22, 2025
Berkshire Looking Better – NASDAQ 100 Dipping To Buy
Following up on my Berkshire Hathaway comments from Monday’s post, below are weekly charts of the stock followed by it’s performance versus the S&P 500. Recall that there has been lots of chatter about Buffet’s retirement and the stock no longer being an outperformer. In absolute terms below, the stocks chart looks powerful, steadily moving from the lower left to the upper right. Comparing Berkshire to the S&P 500, it’s much noisier. Overall, since 2017, BRK has kept pace to […]
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Date: August 20, 2025
Volatility About To Spike With Fed Meeting?
Although it’s August with the markets in full summer doldrum mode, the Fed is meeting this week in their annual Jackson Hole retreat where we should get a very clear picture about the potential for a rate cut in September. Markets are pricing in an almost certainty of this. More on Wednesday. Volatility remains depressed at the 15 level which is very typical during a mature bull market. Until proven otherwise, forays above 20 are buying opportunities for stocks. There […]
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Date: August 18, 2025
Inflation Soars At The Producer Level – Stocks & Bonds Don’t Crash
While inflation at the consumer level was tame in July, it soared at the producer level to numbers not seen since 2022. Pundits and the media had exaggerated initial reactions with all kinds of narratives being spun. I was suspicious. That kind of spike did not add up for me. While I have been saying that a warmer month or two was to be expected, July was hot. I also wanted to see how bad the markets reacted. With that […]
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Date: August 15, 2025
Volatility Nice, Markets Solid, Inflation Tame
I guess the dog days of summer have firmly set in for the markets. It wasn’t long ago when volatility as measured by the VIX was at historic extremes above 60. It’s been in the teens for most of the summer and heading lower. VIX below 20 is a relatively easy environment to invest in when compared to the 30s, 40s, 50s and higher. However, never forget that high volatility almost always leads to lower volatility and vice versa. It’s […]
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Date: August 12, 2025
Lots Of Opps Building
After the two-day reversal and pullback, stocks have bounced, getting close to the area where they should fail if they are going to fail. I still think the lows from last week will be exceeded this quarter, but like everything else, I will not die on that hill. The other day I posted a chart of stock making new 52-week lows to see how much deterioration was under the surface. Someone asked about stocks making new highs. Here it is […]
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Date: August 8, 2025
Looking For More Downside
The major stock market indices saw sharp reversals last Thursday. And there was a whole single day of follow through on Friday. So far, that’s been it. We are currently seeing a bounce from that little pullback. I still think there should be more downside this quarter, but I am certainly not going to die on that hill. In a perfect world, the bounce ends this week and then we see a move below last week’s low. Looking at the […]
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Date: August 6, 2025
Menagerie Of News To End Last Week
***NOTE: I thought this was sent out on Monday morning. It turns out that the blog’s platform crashed and I didn’t know until today. Lots happened last week, especially to end the week. I am happy to have finished my Q2 report to clients and then enjoyed some golf time in Scotland with 7 friends playing the best the country has to offer. My travel mates and the wait staff thought I was unusual when I broke out my laptop […]
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Date: August 5, 2025
***Q2 Client Update***
The second quarter of 2025 was one of those rare and very interesting periods on more than one front. However, the quarter really played out as the first few weeks of April and then the rest of the quarter. The world came into Q2 acutely focused on what President Trump deemed “Liberation Day”, that day when the administration’s trade policy was going to free the U.S. from its dependence on much of its international trade as well as level the […]
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Date: August 1, 2025
