Where is the Greatest Risk?

2020-11-24T17:16:36+00:00November 24th, 2020|Categories: INVESTMENT|

Executive Summary As a quick follow up to last week’s missive, the déjà vu continued this Monday with another COVID-19 vaccine headline.  Markets jumped on headlines, not financial data. While the S&P 500 Index is comprised of the 500 largest U.S. public companies, the Russell 2000 Index [...]

Are You Having Déjà vu?

2020-11-17T17:15:40+00:00November 17th, 2020|Categories: INVESTMENT|

Executive Summary Last Monday the stock market soared upon news that Pfizer had developed a COVID-19 vaccine, and this Monday stock futures were skyrocketing again due to news of a Moderna vaccine.  According to a quoted article in the Wall Street Journal, there are issues with the [...]

Where Are We Now?

2020-11-10T15:48:17+00:00November 10th, 2020|Categories: INVESTMENT|

Executive Summary Last week 785,500 people filed for first-time unemployment benefits.  Since Covid-19, the number of weekly unemployment claims filed have exceeded the previous all-time record of 695,000, each and every week. (See first graph) Also, one can see the labor force participation rate never recovered much [...]

Is There More Than Just Price?

2020-11-03T16:15:09+00:00November 3rd, 2020|Categories: INVESTMENT|

Executive Summary In this week’s missive I look at other measures in addition to price when evaluating markets.  The VIX Index is a measure of the short-term volatility or risk in the market.  In “normal times” the VIX is around 13; last week it closed at 38.  [...]