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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.  [...]

Executive Summary Everyone seems to be wondering what the stock market will do after the election.  Prognosticators are theorizing what will happen, and arguments go both ways for both candidates.  It is important to remember the landscape is different this election:  U.S. is in recession, the world [...]

Executive Summary Year-to-date earnings through September 30, 2020, are expected to plunge 43% compared to the same period last year; however, the S&P 500 Index is up about 7% this year.  Ongoing hope of Federal stimulus continues to fuel this bubble in stock prices.  Market volatility is [...]

Executive Summary In this week’s missive, I provide a bird’s-eye view of the economy via a number of graphs and visuals.  First is a look at the drop in real annualized gross domestic product growth in the second quarter (-31.38%) along with the projected partial rebound in [...]

Executive Summary The official unemployment rate published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) dropped 0.5% to 7.9% in September 2020.  However, in the BLS’ Employment Situation Summary report, the Household Survey revealed that of the 970,000-person decrease in the number of unemployed individuals, only 275,000 attained [...]

Executive Summary The U.S. has been feeling the effects of growing government debt for two decades through reduced economic growth.  For the past 40 years Federal government debt has grown at a faster rate than the economy.  The effects are cumulative and will continue to build until [...]

Executive Summary A recent article in The Wall Street Journal entitled “European Banks Consider Mergers for Survival” describes how banks are exploring mergers due to a decade of weak returns. It goes on to explain how the banks have survived due to government policies and stimulus programs [...]