Changes in the SEC under Trump that you should know There will be many changes under Trump, but for investors the SEC, which is also known as the Securities and Exchange Commission could be a big one. The current head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, is likely gone for sure. He has been tough on Wall Street and even tougher on cryptocurrencies. It is like…

Are you spending like other consumers?Retail sales in the month of October showed an impressive gain of 2.8% compared to last year. With lower gasoline prices, gas stations were a major negative as they declined 7.1% compared to last year. If this group was excluded from the headline number, retail sales would have been up an even more impressive 3…

Major changes to the Dow Jones you should know about!The Dow Jones has changed again as Nvidia (NVDA) replaced Intel (INTC) and Sherwin-Williams (SHW) replaced Dow Inc. (DOW). The most recent change in the Dow Jones came on February 26th when Amazon (AMZN) replaced Walgreens (WBA). With the addition of Nvidia, much of the Mag Seven will now be pres…

Don’t let the presidential election be your investment indicator Presidential elections, especially this one, make people become very emotional, but don’t let that sway you away from investing. Looking back to 1950, the S&P 500 index gained 12.1% per year under Democrats and 7.1% under Republicans. So based on that tad bit of information, you would…

T-bills could be your worst investment Right off the bat you’re thinking what how could they say such a thing? Warren Buffett has hundreds of billions of dollars in T-bills! Why do we think it’s the worst investment? First off, Warren Buffett spends all day long reading, researching, analyzing and when he sees a good value investment, he will likel…

Where does private equity invest the money, you give them? Private equity invests money in many different areas, but the problem that they are having is that both them and venture-capital are sitting on $2.6 trillion, which is a record high. Ultimately, they are having a hard time finding where to invest. A private equity firm generally has to earn…

Inflation comes in hotter than expected, is that a problem? The Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed September headline inflation was up 2.4% compared to last year, which was a little higher than the estimate of 2.3%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy was up 3.3% compared to last year and it also came in a little higher than the expectation of …

More jobs data points to a healthy economy The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTs) showed a surprise increase in the month of August. Openings totaled 8.04 million, which topped the estimate of 7.64 million and July’s reading of 7.71 million. While this is still well off the highs from just a couple of years ago, there are still 1.1 avai…

We do have a housing problem in this country, but it may not be the one you’re thinking. The price of homes has continued to rise and it has left some people out of the housing market, but that may not be a bad thing. I say that because people are doing anything they can to buy a home at these high prices. This includes risky endeavors like cashing…

Retail sales shows the consumer is still spendingAugust retail sales were expected to decline 0.2% in the month, but the consumer was more resilient than anticipated as they actually grew 0.1% compared to the month of July. Compared to last August, retail sales were up 2.1%. Gas stations were the biggest negative in the report as lower prices for o…

Another lesson on why investors should stay away from derivatives The well-known mutual fund company, Franklin Templeton, has a division known as Western Asset Management, WAM. Please do not confuse that with our investment firm, Wilsey Asset Management, also referred to as WAM. Western Asset Management received a Wells Notice from the Securities a…

The labor market continues to soften The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTs) showed job openings continued to fall across the country in the month of July. It was reported that available positions fell to 7.67 million in the month, which 237,000 lower than June’s downwardly revised number and well below the estimate of 8.1 million. While…

Inflation report pretty much solidifies a rate cut in SeptemberPersonal consumption expenditures prices (PCE) were right in line with expectations as they increased just 2.5% in the month of July. Core PCE, which is the Fed’s preferred measure came in at 2.6% and was slightly below the estimate of 2.7%. While both readings matched the June inflatio…

History shows robo-advisors failed to live up to the hype!When robo-advisors first came out years ago, people asked if I was worried about my career. I said no because I do believe that investing can be very complicated and a good advisor is worth it. I’m happy to report that has been the case. Robo advisors have only accumulated one trillion dolla…

Declining CPI opens door to lower interest rates Inflation concerns are falling as the July Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed an increase of 2.9% compared to last year, this would mark the lowest reading since March 2021. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy was also positive as it came in at 3.2% which would mark the lowest reading since April…

“Friendly fraud” is costing businesses $100 billion a year I was surprised to learn of a new term called friendly fraud. This is when a customer disputes a legitimate charge they made on their credit card, debit card, or another payment method. According to a recent survey,35% of Americans admit to committing this kind of fraud, and 40% know someon…

Did the markets overreact to employment numbers? Markets headed largely lower Friday morning after nonfarm payrolls grew by just 114,000 in the month of July. This was well below the estimate of 185,000 and the downwardly revised June number of 179,000. Total revisions for the previous two months led to numbers that were 29,000 lower than previousl…

Q2 GDP not as strong as the headline numbers show While Real Q2 GDP increased at a 2.8% annualized pace and easily topped the estimate of 2.1%, there were some likely one time impacts that lifted the numbers. The major outlier was the change in private inventories as it added 0.82% to the headline GDP number. As we discussed after Q1 GDP, private i…

Retail sales beats expectations but shows consumer is still softening. June retail sales came in flat compared to the previous month, this topped the expectation for a 0.4% decline. Compared to last June, retail sales were up 2.3%. Areas of strength included non-store retailers (+8.9%), food services and drinking places (+4.4%), clothing and clothi…

Inflation continues to cool, creating more hope for rate cuts. The June Consumer Price index (CPI) rose 3.0% compared to last year, which was below last month’s reading of 3.3% and the expectation of 3.1%. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy rose 3.3% from a year ago. This was below last month’s reading and the expectation which were both 3.4%…

Largest US Banks I continue to remain optimistic about investing in the large financials, specifically the money center banks. For the most part they trade at good valuations and the recent stress test shows they remain healthy. All 31 of the largest US banks passed the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test, which provided a hypothetical scenario wh…

May Retail Sales May retail sales showed the economy is continuing to decelerate, which is exactly what I think we need to see. The release showed retail sales were up 0.1% compared to last month, which missed the estimate of 0.2%. When looking at May 2023, retail sales were up 2.3%. While this doesn’t show a booming economy, I still believe it is …

May CPI I would say I was very optimistic after the May Consumer Price Index (CPI) was released. Headline CPI increased 3.3% compared to last year, which was below the estimate and last month’s reading which both stood at 3.4%. Core CPI which excludes food and energy was up 3.4%, which was below the estimate of 3.5% and last month’s reading of 3.6%…

Jobs Report The Jobs Report showed the labor market continues to remain on good footing considering nonfarm payrolls rose by 272,000, which easily topped the estimate of 190,000. Strength occurred in health care and social assistance (+83.5K), leisure and hospitality (+42k), professional and business services (+33k), and construction (+21k). Govern…

PCE The core personal consumption expenditures index (PCE), which is the Fed’s preferred measure for inflation did not show much progress in the month of April. Year over year core PCE was up 2.8% which matched the previous month’s reading. If you want to get really mathy with the numbers and move over one more decimal place there was actual a posi…

AI Boom You may have missed the AI boom in NVIDIA, but for patient longer-term investors there could be a good investment opportunity in energy going forward. As more companies begin to use AI, the demand for energy will increase. Keep in mind that this is on top of expected growth in the electric vehicle market and if it continues on in future yea…

PPI Initially the Producer Price Index (PPI) looked problematic as it increased 0.5%, which easily topped the estimate of 0.3%. Looking further into the report though, the March reading was revised from an initially reported 0.2% gain to a decline of 0.1%, which more than accounted for this month’s beat. Looking on a year-over-year basis, PPI rose …

Cash & Money Markets are not Long-Term Investments With many companies in the stock market more expensive than we’d like to see, we have been sitting on more cash in a money market than we normally would. While the 5% or so in interest is nice for the time being, we are using this as a temporary parking place until we find a good long-term investme…

Labor Market payrolls Nonfarm payrolls increased by 175,000 in the month of April. While this was well below the estimate of 240,000, this may actually be a big positive. Having that type of growth still shows the labor market is on good footing, but to combat the Fed’s inflation concerns it’s nice to see a labor market that is not too hot. Previou…

GDP First quarter GDP was a large disappointment as it grew at an annualized pace of 1.6%, substantially below the estimate of 2.4%. I will say, considering there is a lot of data to collect the first reading can be subject to major revisions. As a recent example, in 2023 Q1 GDP had an initial reading which showed an increase of 1.1%, but it was la…

Retail Sales People may be complaining about higher interest rates, but it does not appear to be slowing down the consumer. Retail sales climbed 0.7% in the month of March, which is easily topped the estimate of 0.3%. Compared to last year, sales were up an impressive 4.0%. Areas of strength continued to be nonstore retailers, which were up 11.3% c…

March CPI The March Consumer Price Index (CPI) report spooked investors and sent the likelihood of a Fed rate cut in June to around 20%, which was a sharp drop from the greater than 50% chance that was priced in before the data was released. The concern came as headline CPI was 3.5% over the last 12 months, which topped the estimate of 3.4% and cor…

March Jobs Report I must say, I was very surprised by the strength in the March Jobs Report. Nonfarm payrolls increased 303,000 in the month, which easily topped the estimate of 200,000. Unlike prior reports, there wasn’t a major change to the previous months as February saw a negative revision of just 5,000 and January’s revision brought the total…

Electric Vehicle Sales Electric vehicle sales have really not kept up with expectations and I’m concerned for the smaller companies such as Lucid, Fisker and Rivian, which besides Tesla may be the only other exclusive electric vehicle company that may survive. Digging deeper into the numbers for Lucid, since 2021 they’ve only built 10,495 cars and …

Lawsuits Against Apple On Thursday, March 21st, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an anti-trust lawsuit along with 16 states against Apple. The DOJ claims Apple’s iPhone ecosystem is a monopoly that drove its “astronomical valuation” at the expense of consumers, developers and rival phone makers. The lawsuit claims that Apple’s anti-competitive…

CPI The Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in a little bit hotter than expected as the headline number for February showed an annual increase of 3.2% versus on expectation of 3.1% and the core CPI showed an annual increase of 3.8% versus an expectation of 3.7%. While it was not much progress, there was still a decline from last month’s core CPI readin…

Labor Market While the headline number of 275k jobs created easily topped the estimate of 198k and sparked concerns the labor market remained too hot, the details of the report showed a much softer labor market. To begin, the prior two months saw a downward revision of 167k jobs, which more than offsets the beat we saw in the month of February. Als…

401k Loans It was nice to see that retirement assets saw a nice increase in 2023. According to Fidelity, the average 401k was up 14% from a year earlier to $118,600 and the average IRA was up 12% to $116,600. While it is good to see this progress, balances are still short of the year end 2021 levels when the average 401k reached $136k and the avera…

Commercial Real Estate We hear that commercial real estate properties are having problems, but how bad are those problems? After the 2008/2009 financial crisis, by the second quarter of 2010 commercial property had a record $194.8 billion properties in distress. Compare that to the end of 2023, when commercial properties in distress totaled $86 bil…

AI Outlook So Far Microsoft spent about $7 million per 30 second ad for the Super Bowl promoting their Copilot AI service. Some results are not coming in so good for Copilot with some testers after using the software for more than six months said it was useful but doesn’t live up to its price. Another survey adopter said the initial excitement wear…

CPI One of the main reasons I continue to believe the Consumer Price Index (CPI) will continue to decelerate this year is I don’t believe there will be as much pressure from the shelter index. In December, the median U.S. asking rent price fell 0.8% from the prior year to $1,964. According to Redfin, this marked the third consecutive monthly declin…

Employment Situation The numbers for nonfarm payrolls blew away expectations as they expanded by 353,000 in the month of January. This easily topped the estimate for 185,000. Job growth was widespread as it grew in every major category except for mining and logging which saw a decline of 6k in the month. Two areas that remained extremely strong wer…

GDP Report I would say the GDP report was an extremely strong indicator that the economy is progressing in the right direction. While the growth number in Q4 of 3.3% was impressive compared to the estimate for a 2% gain, I believe the inflation numbers were even more important. The PCE price index increased just 1.7% in the fourth quarter and when …

Banks and the Economy Each quarter we get very excited to see what the major banks have to say about the consumer and the economy. Last Friday, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup all reported earnings. The overall comments were the consumer is still strong. The CEO of Wells Fargo said average deposit balances per customer remain a…

Inflation Numbers While the headline inflation numbers were above estimates, I wouldn’t say there were really any surprises in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. Headline CPI rose 3.4% vs the estimate of 3.2% and core CPI rose 3.9% vs the estimate of 3.8%. Although it was slightly higher than anticipated, progress is still being made on the inf…

Jobs Report There was initial concern that the jobs report was too strong and could point to inflationary concerns. After digging into the report, I believe it is still in line with our belief that the economy is in a good enough spot to have a soft landing and avoid further inflationary pressures. The initial concern stemmed from the fact that hea…

Santa Claus Rally If you felt disappointed in your gifts from Santa this year, there is still hope he brings your investments some nice returns. We are currently in the middle of the Santa Claus rally which is the period of time that includes the last five trading days of the current year and the first two trading days of the new year. Historically…

CPI The Consumer Price Index (CPI) did not show us much new news and I believe it will be enough for the Fed to keep rates steady and put an end to their hiking cycle. The headline number showed just a 3.1% increase compared to last year and the core CPI, which excludes food and energy showed an increase of 4%. The headline number saw a nice benefi…

Employment While the headline numbers for the jobs report showed results that beat expectations, when you look closely at the report it shows a softening labor market which is exactly what the Fed wants to see. Nonfarm payrolls in the month of November showed a gain of 199,000 which topped the estimate of 190,000 and the unemployment rate fell to 3…

Annual Home Sales The higher interest rates have put a damper on home sales, which is no surprise. The seasonally adjusted annual sales came in at 3.8 million for October. Not only is that a decline of 4.1% from September, it is the lowest seasonally adjusted annual home sales since August 2010 which was over 13 years ago. As interest rates pull ba…