By Sam Taylor | January 2, 2024
2023 proved to be as good a year for equities as 2022 was bad, even better. After last year’s rotten egg, this year’s gains were quite a pleasant surprise, especially given early-on negative consumer and investor sentiment, a banking crisis, two wars, falling earnings, and multi-decade high...
By Sam Taylor | December 27, 2023
While the Federal Reserve has not yet declared victory in its fight to bring inflation back to its 2% target, recent data suggests we may already be there. This past Friday’s report of the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index revealed year-over-year...
By Sam Taylor | November 15, 2023
This year’s outsized performance by the S&P 500, a popular large-company index, is currently being driven by just a handful of companies commonly referred to as the Magnificent Seven, which includes Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Tesla, and Nvidia. These...
By Sam Taylor | October 26, 2023
Investors have been in love with TINA on and off for fifteen years, ever since the Federal Reserve first dropped short-term interest rates to zero in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis and then again in 2020 in response to COVID. TINA, an acronym for There Is No Alternative (to stocks),...
By Sam Taylor | October 2, 2023
As expected in mid-September the captain and crew of the good ship USS FOMC (Federal OpenMarket Committee) agreed to hold the fed funds rate on an even keel of 5.25%-5.50%. However, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell surprised markets by suggesting interest rates will not be falling as much or as fast as...
By Sam Taylor | August 25, 2023
In spite of almost daily claims by the crisis-obsessed media and politicians that Social Security is going broke and those who paid into it over their careers are at risk of losing their benefits, everyone can put their mind at ease because that is not going to happen. Social Security is a pay-as-...

Pages