Despite what you might hear or read some places, investor surveys do not show an extreme level of optimism toward US stocks. Bullishness on stocks has in fact declined somewhat recently and is not far from long-term average readings. Sentiment…
Read more
The bond market has clearly awoken from what appeared to be a low-volatility Fed-induced slumber for much of last year. Longer-term bond yields in the US and elsewhere have jumped to their highest levels since just before the COVID crisis…
Read more
Financial headlines have been captivated recently by explosive behavior in certain “meme stocks” that have been the subject of intense speculation by online retail traders as well as some hedge funds. This has been accompanied by a general trend of…
Read more
Within the broad Technology sector, there are often significant divergences among the various industries. A key intra-sector industry relationship that many investors use as a touchstone is the relative performance of Semiconductors versus Software. These two industries capture different parts…
Read more
While certain heavily shorted stocks are getting much of the attention lately due to retail-driven price surges, the bigger picture news is Q4 earnings reports and analyst behavior. We track earnings estimates for a broad universe of about 2300 US…
Read more
Markets globally continue to show strong risk-seeking behavior, a continuation of the broader trend in place for much of the time since late March 2020. That was the point at which monetary and fiscal policy activity surged to produce enormous…
Read more
The news of Joe Biden winning the US presidency in November has now been joined by news that the US Senate will very likely be under the most narrow control of the Democratic party, along with a narrow majority in…
Read more
The US labor market is showing mixed signals depending on the data and time period used. Here we review some data that can help identify the divergences and put current conditions in context. There has been much discussion about the…
Read more
Given the rebound in the Financials sector’s relative returns recently, and the broader increase in investor interest in Value after a long period of underperformance, it’s worth a look at some of the macro trends in the US banking sector…
Read more
The recent returns of the Energy sector have been dramatic: in just two weeks from its latest trough on November 6th (just before the Pfizer vaccine news hit), the S&P 500 Energy sector rose 37%, the biggest return of any…
Read more