After posting back-to-back weekly gains following the big January sell-off, equities were lower last week (S&P -1.8%). Value and small-cap beat growth and large-cap. Oil was higher for an eighth-straight week. The big story was the January CPI inflation surprise and hawkish Fed commentary. Best sectors were energy (+2.1%) and materials (+1.1%); worst sectors were communication services (-3.9%) and technology (-2.9%). 4Q Earnings Now 70% Reported The fundamental improvement for the aggreg… View More
There were plenty of concerns to go around as we finished out the week including: The imminent risk of war between Russia and Ukraine continues to build. The NY Times on February 11th reported US officials have picked up intelligence suggesting Russia may invade Ukraine as early as Wednesday. Further chip shortages may result from a conflict with Russia. The White House warned the US Chip Industry on February 11th that Russia may retaliate against US sanctions by blocking access to key materia… View More
Inflation is starting to be noticed by everyone everywhere. We will not discuss the price of fuel which we expect will be north of $5.00 a gallon in California in the next few weeks. However, we do want to share a recent local “dining” experience. We were out to lunch the other day at a local Mexican restaurant that we have gone to for more than two decades, and we noticed the temporary copied paper menus on the table had replaced the regular menus. I always order the same thing at this plac… View More
U.S. equities finished last week mostly higher (S&P 500 +0.8%), coming off intraweek lows and rallying strongly on Friday. The S&P 500 moved into double-digit percentage loss territory several times before the end of the week rally. The market reacted negatively to the FOMC meeting, judging that the recent hawkish Fed repricing has more room to run. The Q4 earnings season also continued to prove mediocre, with supply disruptions and cost pressures showing up in too many reports. Best sec… View More
As we have mentioned over the last few months, we expect market volatility to increase in 2022. There are a number of reasons for our concern such as the long running bull market, real Inflation for the first time in more than 20 years and rising interest rates. Maybe our largest concern was the midterm elections while our other concerns are playing out. Midterm elections tend to have larger equity market corrections compared to non-midterm election years with an average intra-year decline of 19… View More