Category: Markets & Economy

The June labor report was very strong. We will review it in this article. However, we can’t ignore the recent weakening in the data in the 2nd half

Jobless claims in the week of June 27th showed another poor result. At this rate, it will take months even to fall to the previous record high. In

There is extreme investor herding into the stocks least hurt (or even helped) by COVID-19. The CLOU cloud industry ETF is up 74% from its bottom in March.

If you are investing for the short term, you are betting on investor sentiment. This is a bet on what will go in and out of style on

The final June University of Michigan consumer sentiment report showed the overall confidence index fell from the preliminary reading of 78.9 to 78.1. It was still up from

In our previous article we mentioned ESG is the equivalent of going overweight tech and underweight energy. That makes this factor look like it’s following momentum more than

COVID-19 is still a crisis for a few southern and western states as the graph of new U.S. cases now has a 2nd hump. This isn’t a 2nd

We usually don’t include quotes from investors, but these do an amazing job at measuring the market’s tone. A high yield portfolio manager at Diamond Hill Capital Management

The popular model on Wall Street is an asset light business which utilizes software. At first glance, you might be confused about why an investor would want less

The economy as a whole certainly hasn’t fully recovered from this recession, but some housing stats already have. The housing market came into this recession in fantastic shape

When inflation sets in, savings lose value, which can be devastating if it happens too quickly. Economists like to see a bit of inflation in an economy, since

The jobless claims report was terrible on a rate of change basis. This is only one week of bad data, but if it continues, we won’t see anywhere

The U.S. stock market is in a highly unusual state even though there has been little movement in the past couple days. In the AAII individual investor sentiment

The Redbook same store sales growth reading in the first week of June was one of the only indicators that showed a weakening trend. In the week of

It’s human nature to be biased towards constantly reinforcing prior beliefs. That’s why investing is so difficult. Even when you are invested in a company, you need to

Narratives tend to trail the market, meaning people come up with explanations of why the market moved after it happened. Effectively you can justify why any move happened.

We are always looking at valuations because that’s the backbone of investing. With extreme market volatility, the only way to stay sane is to have an understanding of

As we mentioned in a previous article, there was some contention over the unemployment rate. On the one hand, it should have been 3 points higher. On the

The level of speculation from retail traders has reached unreal levels. On Twitter we polled our followers asking if they know someone who just started trading this year

Throughout this recession we have been looking at the high frequency consumer spending data. Typically, it’s not as important because it can meander away from retail sales which

There were 2.509 million jobs created in May which was above the 20.687 million jobs lost in April and dramatically above expectations for 7.725 million in losses. Similarly,

The stock market drives the media narrative. Some argue that the decline in the stock market in March caused governments to take COVID-19 more seriously. Public health shouldn’t

On the one hand, the consumer had deleveraged this past economic cycle. However, many people were still hurting. The bottom 50% which don’t own stocks are mostly struggling.

We rarely mention near term stock action unless it has been extreme. This market is the polar opposite of March. The financial media went from discussing a potential

The stock market is laser focused on the economy recovering as it sees COVID-19 as an issue that is behind us. Investors are also ignoring the now international