Mike on Markets

Happy Thursday! I was driving my 4-year-old to school this week, and now that she’s past the age of those annoying toddler songs, I’ve been indoctrinating her to real music by slowly dripping the classics on her via Sirius’s Hair Nation and other trusted sources. Just as we were about to pull into her school,…More

Happy Friday! Yes, I’ve been talking about inflation since April of last year, and yes, we’ve seen quite a bit since then. But there’s more coming. At least I think so. But inflation isn’t a bad thing. Much like rising interest rates, it’s a sign that the economy is growing (I’ll take inflation any day…More

Happy Friday! I wrote about tech and the Nasdaq on Tuesday, and since then, it’s continued to be a bit of a rollercoaster. Maybe that correlation between the Nasdaq 100 (ticker: QQQ) will reverse again. Your guess is as good as mine. One of my points was that when a relationship keeps changing like this,…More

There is a theory floating around that as the 10-year Treasury yield continues to rise, more pain will be inflicted on the Nasdaq and tech sector. I’m not so sure about that. The chart below depicts the correlation between the 10-year Treasury yield and the NASDAQ 100 (ticker: QQQ). Green indicates a positive correlation and…More

Happy Friday! Let’s poke the bear a little… Before you look at the charts below from First Trust, I did NOT compile the data, build the chart, or even pick the colors. All I did was copy and paste the charts below, so don’t go nuclear on me if you don’t like them. Speaking of…More

Happy Friday! This week sucked and I’m guessing many investors will want to know why, so here’s my take… Congress wants to pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that is not needed. The economy is growing (just look at the monster ISM Manufacturing report this week), and over 50% of the country might have some…More

Happy Friday! I have been adamant that although the opportunity ahead looks incredibly promising for patient investors, the ride probably isn’t going to be fun.  It’s sort of like when parents say that the days are long but the years go fast. When you’re in it, you’d occasionally rather be anywhere else, but when you…More

Happy Friday! I used to work with the top ranked capital markets research analyst, and he told one of my institutional clients that this is how retail investors pick stocks (this isn’t verbatim but close)… “There’s a guy who needs to get his hair cut. He goes down to the barbershop, but all the chairs…More

Happy Friday! I was about 5% of the way through writing about dogecoin until throwing in the towel. I just came to the realization that if I spent too much time on this subject that I would come out the other side dumber, and I can’t risk that right now. Not in my mid 40s…More

Happy Friday! Here’s an academic study at Harvard circa 2001 titled Functional Imaging of Neural Responses to Expectancy and Experience of Monetary Gains and Losses. Roughly 92% of it is unreadable, but I expected that going in. A business school professor once warned my class that Harvard researchers are like bobblehead dolls – huge heads with…More