Author: UPFINA

The labor market is starting to improve at a stronger rate after having a setback in July. You can see in the chart below how initial jobless claims

With such low rates for such a long time, almost everything that has done well in the past few years has at least been a partial bet on

We think by now you are aware this has been an unusual recession. We mentioned in a previous article that in the previous cycle many were worried about

Historically, the only time the market has viewed good economic news as bad news is when the Fed was expected to tighten monetary policy. This is a unique

Based on continued claims in the survey week, consumer confidence, the ISM services employment index, the household pulse survey, and the ADP private sector payrolls survey, this July

In the week of August 1st, seasonally adjusted jobless claims fell from 1.435 million to 1.186 million which was way below the consensus of 1.442 million. It was

Both the ISM manufacturing and services PMIs were strong. In fact, they were stronger than their headlines indicated because of the negative impact from inventories/supplier deliveries. This is

Just because the S&P 500 has regained almost all of its bear market losses and COVID-19 cases are starting to fall doesn’t mean we aren’t living in unprecedented

Unless you have children and are dealing with the economic ramifications of COVID-19, you might not realize its importance. As you can see from the chart on the

In July, the consumer sentiment index fell from 78.1 to 72.5 as the chart below shows. However, it didn’t fall much in the 2nd half of the month.

There is some confusion with the jobless claims report from the week of July 25th. Seasonally adjusted initial claims rose, while unadjusted claims fell. This increase in seasonally

It’s possible the economy bounces back in August and September due to the decline in COVID-19 cases and the fiscal stimulus. We got early positive news from the

The amount of negative yielding bonds is spiking again. There is $15.2 trillion in negative yielding bonds. The total stockpile of negative-yielding debt is now close to $15.2

It’s tough to explain how unusual this recent run in markets has been because everything has been unusual this year. If something normal happened, it would be a

In a previous article, we mentioned the combined total of unemployment claims looked depressionary. That’s a big statement because there are some still calling for a V shaped

At first the market reacted positively to the G-20 meeting between President Trump and President Xi. Although a deal wasn’t achieved and little progressed was made towards one,

We have been reporting on the weak jobless claims readings for 6 weeks now. This latest report ended the record long 15 week decline in seasonally adjusted initial

The consumer is headed in the wrong direction which shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s actually surprising that it hasn’t weakened further. The two main negative catalysts are the

To be a great investor in all cycles, you need to be good at understanding businesses and macroeconomics. This is a macro world and we are all just

If you aren’t an experienced investor or one that studies history, you will easily get swept up by the cycle. It’s almost impossible not to get swept up

The ‘long term’ is relative. A trader can think 5 minutes is the long term, while someone else can think 15 years is the long term. In our

With the recent labor market slowdown in the past few weeks, the economy has come precariously close at times to ending the streak of declines in initial unemployment

The bad news on consumer spending and the labor market has been relentless in the last few weeks as an economic slowdown started in mid-June when COVID-19 cases

In Q2, most stock buybacks were suspended and there were share issuances to shore up balance sheets. That doesn’t support the thesis that stocks have only risen in

Usually, there isn’t unanimity in the Bank of America fund manager poll which asks which is the most crowded trade, but there was in July because of how