Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a forced break from the prevailing news of the day and turn your focus to other things. Ih the stock market right now, all anybody seems to want to talk about is the trade war and the latest chapter in an ongoing debate that doesn’t appear ready to […]
Read MoreHere’s one more thing to worry about if trade tensions escalate further between the U.S. and China…
Read MoreIf you want to know where the broader market is headed, this is the group of stocks to look at.
Read MoreBut don’t panic just yet, there could still be upside ahead in the near term.
Read MoreOver the last month, the entire market seems to have been holding its breath, waiting for some kind of catalyst to pin the market’s next wave of momentum on. Are indications that the weakening global economy is rippling into the health of the U.S. economy correct, or is an increasingly accommodative Federal Reserve going to […]
Read MoreSince the beginning of 2018, the Materials sector has been one of the worst-performing sectors in the market. Despite an increase since the end of last year of a little more than 10%, the sector remains down more than 14% since January 2018. Concerns throughout the period about increasing commodity costs have been compounded more […]
Read MoreOver the last several years, one of the biggest benchmarks the Fed has used to evaluate the need to raise, lower or maintain their interest rate policy has been the employment rate. Every month, the market seems to hold its breath as a new set of unemployment and salary data is made available and everybody […]
Read MoreOne of the classic benchmarks of the economy’s health and strength is the housing market. Stocks of retail companies like Home Depot (HD) and Lowe’s (LOW) often serve as proxies of to guide the market’s perception of the housing market, but it also isn’t uncommon to see experts and analysts referring to homebuilders like D.R. […]
Read MoreOne of the things about stocks in the Consumer Discretionary sector that is interesting is how widely disparate they are. The general perception of most stocks in the sector is that they are highly cyclical, sensitive to inflationary pressures that make them more risky when the economy is in trouble. One industry in the sector […]
Read MoreOver the last week or so, I’ve written about a few companies in the Food Products industry that I think offer some interesting possibilities under current market conditions – something that is even more true if the market sees an increase in short-term volatility. Investors are putting a lot of focus on geopolitics right now, […]
Read MoreThe market has had a pretty good dose of good news so far this week; President Trump tweeted that progress in trade talks with China had progressed enough, and shown sufficient promise to ensure the imposition of new tariffs at the March 1 deadline would be delayed. The President has even gone so far as […]
Read MoreAs the market continues to recover from its lows in late December, I’m seeing more and more reports and opinions that while economic growth in the United States may begin to slow (and based on some measurements, that might already be starting to happen), it isn’t expected to actually reverse and begin contracting for as […]
Read MoreEconomic reports this morning, in particular global factory orders and January housing sales and inventory both seem to be reigniting concerns about global and domestic economic activity. The market is also paying attention on the trade front, as negotiations between the U.S. and China by all accounts progress at a slow, but steady pace. The […]
Read MoreRising wages are putting pressure on corporate profit margins, but Goldman Sachs has a low labor cost basket that’s outperforming the market.
Read MoreAt the beginning of this week, I used news about widespread flight cancellations as a launching pad to start looking at the airline industry. Airline stocks haven’t seen quite as much volatility as I thought they might from the news, which I’ll go ahead and take as an overestimation on my part about how much […]
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