The rally will extend and challenge December highs. But it's not a bull market. We're just bouncing back from January lows back to the top end of the trading range.
Typically at the beginning of the year, there is a tendency toward reinvestment dollars, which should at least give the market a hint of an upward rise.
Yet you can make good money in that environment. It just takes a different strategy; you try to hold a core bunch of stocks you think are in secular bull markets and trade at inflection points.
There is a lot of noise in the short interest figures, ... It's a stretch to come to a market investment conclusion or even an inference based on short interest.
Earnings are coming in pretty much on target. We do have an option expiration so there is a lot of noise.
Earnings are coming in pretty much on target.
The time to be bullish was back in October.
I've been investing in boring things, and boring has been pretty good.
The narrowing of the trade gap and claims coming in at four-year lows has a lot to do with today's market action.
Dedicated short sellers tend to be among the smarter investors on the Street,
Consumers are clearly being impacted by the three hurricanes, ... That, combined with natural gas and gasoline prices, is having an effect. I think $3 a gallon gasoline is the tipping point to a consumer that is under siege. But this number is really no great surprise.
The big concern is future inflation and the Fed is viewing that through the labor market. Wage growth continues to be muted.
The consensus is technology is cheap, and I think that's probably true.
I'm not bearish. I don't think we're going into a recession and I'm not worried about deflation ... But earnings growth should only be about 7 to 8 percent this year and guidance for earnings keeps coming down.
If you think you can recklessly buy stocks you have to be assuming more than a V-shaped recovery in earnings -- you have to be assuming a hockey-stick shaped recovery.
I don't pay much attention to what the Fed says because I don't know what they mean when they say it. It's like Nostradamus. These folks talk in quatrains. It's kind of comical as everyone tries to dissect this stuff,
I don't know how to handicap terrorism, other than to say that I think the risk premium should be higher than it is. But I think I can predict, directionally, earnings and the momentum of the economy.
The employment number that came out last Friday is consistent with a muddling economy. It's a fait accompli that the Fed will go up just a quarter point,
The cheerleaders talk about the economy growing, but the economy grew at 7 percent from 1966 to 1982, while stocks went nowhere because valuations were too optimistic. And they're optimistic now, by historic measurements.
The market is not priced for oil prices at record highs and rising interest rates and slowing earnings momentum and terrorist worries. People are pretty complacent out there. The assumption is that the economy is mending and that this will be a robust, self-sustaining recovery.