Getting ready to close out a year that most of us are probably anxious to put behind us and look ahead to the future has been a common theme lately on social media. I think it’s certainly true that exhaustion about COVID and everything associated with it has most people hoping for better things in […]
Read MoreGood news about continued vaccine approval and deployment, along with Congress’ approval of a second stimulus package over the weekend has the major indices very near the highs they set last week. There is a not-too-surprising temptation to think about the end of the pandemic and start looking for all of the ways that the […]
Read MoreThe massive rally of the last week appears to have begun to taper in the last couple of days, which really shouldn’t be surprising at all. It’s pretty normal for the market movement moderate, or even move back in the opposite direction of quick, rapid moves to either the upside or downside. One of the […]
Read MoreOver the last month or so, the market has struggled to establish a clear direction. Increasing COVID cases across the country are finally starting to cause concern, especially heading into the colder months of the year, while the political arena has only gotten more divisive and contentious in the weeks ahead of the presidential election. […]
Read MoreIt may seem a bit incongruous, but the truth is that value investing tends to be counter-intuitive to the mindset that most investors take to the market. I say incongruous because, at its most basic starting point, the principle of value investing fits well with rule #1 of investing in the stock market – buy […]
Read MoreThroughout the last several months, it has been interesting to sit back and observe the dichotomy between price action in the stock market and actual economic growth. Increasing infection rates across the United States along with still historically high unemployment numbers showing that economic recovery is much slower than the market would prefer to see. […]
Read MoreIf you think strictly about price performance and what the price of a stock is now relative to where it was in the past – in particular, relative to where it was on a pre-pandemic basis – it’s pretty easy to understand why so much attention is being paid to Tech stocks that make remote […]
Read MoreIt’s kind of funny to see how popular opinion among investors shifts under different conditions. A stock market that has recovered in record time from the fastest plunge to bear market low in recorded history, in the face of the pandemic that prompted the downturn in the first place continues practically unabated, has prompted investors […]
Read MoreUncertain economic conditions have proven to be a good time to think about stocks that most people tend to overlook because they’re “boring.” These are stocks that also tend to operate in counter-cyclical fashion. It’s been interesting – but not surprising – to see a bit of a resurgence in stocks in the Food Products […]
Read MoreThe “herd mentality” can be a funny thing to think about in societal terms – but it’s a real thing in the stock market. The sheer number of publicly traded stocks on U.S. exchanges alone creates a wave of market data that no single person can handle alone, and that’s a big reason why it […]
Read MoreThe market is focusing most of its attention on an expanded list of companies reporting earnings this week, with investors eager to see if earnings provide indications that corporate America is weathering the pandemic storm successfully and to measure the odds that the economy will continue to recover. News over the weekend that lawmakers in […]
Read MoreBeing a value-oriented investor means that the general mindset around a stock’s historical trading ranges is a bit different than what most investors, who tend to focus primarily on growth, tend to pay attention to. Value means looking for stocks trading at a nice price, and that usually means that stocks trading at or near […]
Read MoreOver the past couple of weeks, uncertainty has started to creep back into the market, after enthusiasm from the reopening of the economy on a national scale even as COVID-19 remains a concern that will persist into 2021. Unemployment is trending lower, but not as quickly as many economists and “experts” seem to expect, and […]
Read MoreBeing a contrarian investor can mean a few different things. To some, contrarian investing is correlated with value investing, and I think that makes sense in a lot of ways. For one thing, being a contrarian means recognizing that all price trends – up or down – are finite in length and duration. That means […]
Read MoreSpikes in COVID-19 infections across the country have put the market on uneven footing in the last couple of weeks, with the major indices coming off of their most recent highs and sparking concern that a broader pullback, or more alarming, a fresh new correction could be looming. That uncertainty has been enough to push […]
Read More