Mike on Markets

Happy Friday! I wrote about the student debt forgiveness plan this week. It’s a third-rail subject, so I tried to keep it as objective and economically/financially focused as possible. Skipped over the morality debate of whether it’s right or wrong because I’m not looking to trigger anyone, nor do I suspect anyone cares about my…More

Happy Friday! Like I said last week, I’m taking some time off from writing, but there are still a few stories worth discussing before the long weekend… This is what they want There is no Federal Reserve meeting in August because the St. Louis branch hosts a central banker conference in Jackson Hole instead.  Yes,…More

Happy Friday! I’m taking this week and next off from writing (quasi-summer break), but if you’d like an evergreen piece, just let me know. Happy to send along a few. Moving along… Let’s HOPE for a soft landing This stellar graphic from Piper Sandler depicts the roadmap for how the economy responds to rate changes.  Housing tends…More

Happy Friday! The worst part of this job is keeping up with politics and elections, but it’s important because the clown show in D.C. sets the rules of the game. Midterms are coming up in less than three months, so I wrote about the influence of politics on investing (reach out if you want a…More

Happy Friday! I’ve noticed an uptick in scary stock charts; as usual, most of them provide zero value. That’s what I wrote about this week. Hopefully, your clients will walk away with the same level of skepticism towards any chart circulated online (with obvious exception to what’s provided in this blog). As always, reach out…More

Happy Friday! Did the market bottom back in mid-June? That’s the question we attempt to answer in the weekly (reach out if you want a copy). I’m not crazy enough to call a bottom, but there’s a fair amount of data to indicate that it could have been one.  But the real objective of this…More

Happy Friday! Took a break from market commentary this week. Feel like this “are we in a recession or not” dead horse can only be beaten so much. That being said, I took a few swings below. We are slowing down There’s this idea that a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative…More

Happy Friday! This week I wrote about the recent strength of the dollar and why the media views every move of the dollar negatively. If it weakens, it’s one step away from hyperinflation, and when it gets stronger, the story becomes weaker earnings for multi-national corporations and “doom loops.” The TLDR version is this… We…More

Happy Friday! The Halftime Report was published this week. Let’s never speak of the first half of 2022 again, but let me know if you’d like a copy. Moving on… A rose by any other name  The Russell indices rebalanced back in late June, and two funny things happened along the way.  First, GameStop was removed…More

Happy Friday! The year’s first half was the worst for the S&P 500 going back to 1970. It peaked on the first trading day of the year, lost over 13% in 107 trading days (correction phase), and then another 12% in 7 days (panic phase). The mild recovery since then puts it around a loss…More