Today’s stock market rout was led by the Magnificent-7. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) was down 6.1% today, and down 8.3% since the S&P 500 peaked at a record high during July 16 (chart). The S&P 500 is

The DJIA is down 2.1% from its record high of 41,198 reached last Wednesday (chart). The DJTA was down 1.6% today, remaining below its record high in early 2022. According to Dow Theory, the DJTA needs to break out

Yesterday, we suggested that the stock market selloff since the July 16 record high in the S&P 500 might not last very long. So we were pleased by today’s broad rally in the S&P 500 (1.1%), the Nasdaq (1.6%), the Russell 2000 (1.7%),

The S&P 500 is down 2.9% from its record high of 5667.20 on Tuesday, July 16. The following day semiconductor stocks got whacked on news that the Biden administration is considering draconian measures to clamp down on foreign companies

  The week ahead is jampacked with key economic indicators, including the first read on Q2’s real GDP and June’s PCED inflation rate. We’re expecting robust economic growth and further progress toward the Fed’s 2.0% inflation target. The latest

The bull market in stocks has been quite volatile in recent days as it rotates and broadens. The triggering event was a better-than-expected June CPI report on Thursday, July 11. Since then, the financial markets priced in a 100%

We’ve been predicting a broadening stock market meltup in the event that the Fed starts cutting the federal funds rate (FFR) as inflation moderates while economic growth remains solid. Last week’s CPI and today’s retail sales report confirm that’s

China just loaned two young pandas to the San Diego Zoo. In the past, such Panda Diplomacy suggested that relations between the US and China might be improving. It’s hard to come to that conclusion currently since both US

We’ve previously written that our number-one concern for the stock market is unsettling domestic and global political turmoil. The attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday heightened anxiety about political violence at home as the November elections

  The economic week ahead will include updates on industrial production and business sales of goods as well as retail sales. The upshot is likely to be another all-time high for June’s Index of Coincident Indicators (Thu), as confirmed by

This morning, we weren’t surprised by June’s lower-than-expected CPI report. It does increase the odds of a cut in the federal funds rate (FFR) in September. That supports our expectations for the stock market rally to continue and to broaden out from the MegaCap-7

We are raising our year-end target for the S&P 500 to 5800 from 5400. We are still targeting 8000 by the end of the decade. The stock market seems to be discounting our Roaring 2020s scenario faster than we

Bank stocks popped today after Reuters reported that the Fed is considering relaxing a regulation, i.e., the GSIB Surcharge. It requires big banks to hold additional capital due to the systemic risk they pose to the global financial system. Tweaking the

The strength of the US consumer has underpinned much of the current bull market in stocks. In recent months, rising real disposable personal income (DPI) has fueled consumer spending even as the excess saving accumulated during the pandemic was

The stock market’s bull run since October 12, 2022 has started to raise some concerns. According to the naysayers, earnings growth expectations are too high because there are mounting signs of an economic slowdown. The breadth of the stock market rally continues to narrow, which may mean that

  Last month, lower-than-expected CPI and PPI inflation readings for May, along with rising unemployment claims for June, raised market expectations that the Fed will ease monetary policy sooner rather than later. The week ahead will be dominated by

Last week and this week have been good ones for the recession camp of economists. Indeed, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracking model’s estimate of real GDP growth during Q2-2024 dropped from a robust 3.0% on June 26 to half

The S&P 500 jumped to a new record high of 5509 today on better-than-expected Tesla vehicle deliveries. In addition, today’s JOLTS report showed more job openings. Nevertheless, the comments of two Fed officials today suggest that the Fed Put

Long-term US government bond prices fell sharply since the presidential debate on Thursday evening. The 10-year Treasury yield rose from 4.29% on Thursday afternoon to 4.48% today, the highest level since May 31 (chart). That was in spite of

The stock market rose to another record high last week. It has been doing so in recent weeks led by fewer sectors and fewer stocks. The S&P 500 market-cap-weighted stock price index has significantly outperformed the equal-weighted index in

We know there will be fireworks on July 4th. The question is whether we should expect any blasts or just fizzling sounds related to the economy and the labor market during the week ahead. The holiday-shortened week will be jampacked with employment

The economy has experienced neither a hard landing nor a soft landing since the Fed started tightening monetary policy in March 2022. It has experienced a few rolling recessions in industries like housing and retailing, which spurred soft patches

We still expect that the Fed’s preferred core PCED inflation measure will fall to the Fed’s 2.0% target by the end of this year (chart). It was already down to 2.8% y/y in April. May’s number will be released

The first available monthly indicator of the labor market is the “jobs plentiful” series in the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) survey. Today, June’s reading showed that 38.1% of respondents said so (chart). That’s a relatively high reading and a slight

  The key indicator everyone’s watching this week is May’s PCED (Fri). We expect the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge will continue to show progress toward its 2.0% target. The labor market may also take center stage this week. If

The stock market has a bad breadth problem again. For a while, it seemed to be attributable to the outperformance of the Magnificent-7. Many other stocks performed well, but not as well as the Mag-7. More recently, the outperformance

Today’s batch of economic indicators was on the weak side. Indeed, the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index fell deeper into negative territory today (chart). Does this suggest that the odds of a recession are increasing? Nope: The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracking model

The stock market is experiencing a meltup led by technology stock prices in general and semiconductor stock prices in particular, especially Nvidia (chart). We turned bullish on the stock market in early November 2022. On November 30, 2022, OpenAI

May’s retail sales, including food services, rose just 0.1% m/m, weaker than expected (chart). That’s in current dollars. Adjusted for inflation, they were not as weak. CPI goods fell 0.1% m/m during May. So real retail sales, less food

China’s May economic indicators were broadly negative, as evidenced by the recent weakness in Chinese stock prices as well as the price of copper, which is very sensitive to economic developments in China (chart). The bursting of China’s property