Optimism among small business soared in December by the most since 1980 as the economy’s prospects improved dramatically in the aftermath of the presidential election. The indicator itself is now at the highest level since the end of December 2004. Moreover a subcomponent indicating small...
About a year ago oil, value and small cap stocks were plunging. The prevailing narrative was that these issues had absolutely no upside, no access to capital and will be forever forgotten because of HFTs and ETFs....
Treasuries traded lower on December’s employment data, the result of the 2.9% increase in average hourly earnings over the last 12 months. This is the greatest jump since the recession ended in June 2009. It is believed job and wage prospects will increase even more...
Treasury yields fell to a five week low yesterday. Two weeks ago the street was “puking bonds,” reasonable bids virtually impossible to find and spreads between the bid and ask were gapping higher. In my view the economic environment is continuing to improve thus casting...
There was little initial reaction to the Minutes of the December FOMC meeting. Perhaps of significance was the Committee’s fear that the central bank might be forced to quicken the pace of interest rate increases to head off higher inflation....
Some can make the argument the markets believe Trump will deliver on his economic agenda given the sharp increase in Treasury yields and the advance in the beaten down and unowned value and small cap stocks, entities that do best in a growing economy....
Banks and phone companies pushed stocks higher as the dollar is at the highest level versus the euro since 2003. Financials are the direct beneficiary of a more hawkish Fed. As most are aware, the central bank is now projecting three interest rate hikes in...
In my view the markets are vastly over extended and could be subject to a sharp correction for almost any potential reason. Could an unexpected hawkish FOMC statement be a potential catalyst?...
A theme that I have pursued throughout 2016 is a rotation from mega capitalized growth entities into the smaller caps and value shares. Some of the comments I received about this potential rotation could not be printed, but were generally along line that if the...
Oil surged over 9% as OPEC cut production for the first time in eight years, a production cut in some estimates that was greater than anticipated. Oil gained further momentum as inventories declined for the second consecutive week versus rising. East coast inventories are at...