My title today derives from a quotation attributed to rear admiral David Farragut during the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay. The actual sequence went more like this: “From his high perch, where he was lashed to the rigging of his flagship, USS Hartford, Farragut could see the ships pulling back. “What’s the trouble?” he shouted through…
Tag: “QE”
“Bond markets are sending one big global recession warning“
You have to be kidding me! This headline from CNBC greeted me this morning and appears to give us a significant reason for the Dow Jones, S&P and NASDAQ indices suffering a sharp decline today. It is just one more instance of media hype on two non-sure-things … a recession is imminent and that a…
Flight to Safety: “All that glitters is not gold!” — William Shakespeare
A Retraction Before getting into the meat of this post covering the last ten years of ‘Flights to Safety’ and gold as a flight-to-safety asset, I need to take back all the nice things I said about Barron’s last week because they went back to the dark side this week (“The Dow Celebrates Five Weeks…
“The Eerie Calm in Global Markets” (Beware!)
The recent shift in Fed rhetoric … does it really mark a policy shift? Market history update Bad News Sells! Randall Forsyth, Barron’s editorial writer and chief contributor to the “Up and Down Wall Street” column, is a modern day “Mikey.” You all remember Mikey? He was a 3 or 4-year-old toddler featured…
The “Christmas Eve Massacre” and where we stand now
First and Foremost … By early October, 2018, the S&P 500 had more than quadrupled off its 666, 2009 secular bear market low (up over 300%). This was capped off by a spectacular 24 month run that saw the S&P 500 increase more than 50% to a new all-time-high of 2951.81 (10/3/18). I would say a correction of…
The beginning of the end
Or, is it the end of the beginning? Or, is it, as stated in the eloquent and somewhat humorous words of Sir Winston Churchill, ” … not the end. This is not even the beginning the end. But is perhaps the end of the beginning.” This line was delivered to the attendees at the Lord…
Panic City & Cramer’s Revisionist Market History
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning” … Robert Duval as gung-ho, Lt. Colonel Kilgore in Francis Ford Coppola’s classic Vietnam film, “Apocalypse Now.“ In Kilgore’s case it was the “smell of victory” … not so for the market. Since Monday (10/8) it was napalm morning, noon and night for US equities, burning…
Worried About Stocks?: A Little History That Might Help You Sleep Better
We have seen this movie before … And many times. The United States Treasury 10-year note breaching a 3% yield (peaking last week at 3.248%) after another quarter point bump in the Fed funds rate (to 2.25%) has rattled the market again. “Again” is the operative word. This happens every time that the Fed moves…
“The Fed Could Be Hiking Us into a Recession, … “
“The Fed could be hiking us into a recession, investor Peter Boockvar warns.” This headline appeared Saturday (9/29) on CNBC’s web site. Are You Scared Yet? You probably shouldn’t be. First of all, if you look at the interview, it is hardly a full-blown warning of imminent disaster from Boockvar, though the CNBC header would like…
“There’s something lurking out there … “
The CNBC headline goes on something “… that will upset the market.” So if nothing really is going on to upset the market just plant the idea that there is in your headline. That’ll get their attention. In response I might say that there is always something lurking that might upset stocks. That’s a fact…