MarketWatch (May 15)
“A big bounce for stocks on Friday still leaves the main U.S. stock market benchmark close to entering a bear market as investors fret over the Federal Reserve’s ability to get a grip on inflation without sinking the economy stokes fears of stagflation — a pernicious combination of slow economic growth and persistent inflation.”
Barron’s (May 2)
“Sure, it feels like the S&P 500 has nowhere to go but down….and sentiment toward stocks remains terrible.” Given this, ”you’d expect to see fundamentals crumbling. They haven’t. About 80% of companies have reported better-than-expected profits this earnings season, while margins of non-bank companies, at least, have increased from the fourth quarter despite higher inflation.” With everyone “so terrified” and fundamentals strong, “stocks might be ready to rise.”
Tags: Better-than-expected, Earnings season, Fundamentals, Inflation, Margins, Non-banks, Profits, Q4, S&P 500, Sentiment, Stocks, Terrified
Barron’s (April 11)
“The stocks that have performed best over the past few years have seen a turn in fortune, while some of the worst performers are enjoying gains.” Of the 20 best-performing stocks in the Russell 1000 index between 2016 and 2021, “just three have seen gains in 2022” and on average the 20 stocks have “lost 22% so far this year.” At the other end of the spectrum, of the 20 worst-performers, “a majority—11—have gained this year.”
Tags: Best performers, Fortune, Gains, Index, Russell 1000, Stocks, Worst performers
Markets Insider (April 7)
Investors are punishing transportation stocks “in the face of sky-high fuel prices and slowing growth.” Since hitting a November high, the Dow Jones Transportation Average has fallen 20%, “the technical definition of a bear market.” Often seen as “a bellwether for the health of the underlying economy, the index is comprised of “transportation stocks, from logistics companies such as FedEx and UPS, airlines, to railroad operators like Union Pacific.”
Tags: Airlines, Bear market, Bellwether, Dow Jones, Economy, FedEx, Fuel prices, Investors, Logistics, Punishing, Railroad, Sky-high, Slowing growth, Stocks, Transportation, UPS
Washington Post (March 9)
“Stock analysts are riding with the bull despite rumblings from the bear.” On Monday, “U.S. stocks slumped the most in 17 months… but the ‘buy the dip’ mentality isn’t dead… and stock analysts are part of the reason it’s likely to stick around awhile. Research on individual stocks is as bullish as it has been in two decades by some measures.”
Bloomberg (March 8)
“When it’s just the yield curve narrowing, or oil jumping, or stocks falling into a correction, maybe you can hold off on panicking over a recession. When all three happen at once, the argument gets stronger that it’s time to take the threat seriously.”
Tags: Argument, Correction, Falling, Jumping, Narrowing, Oil, Panicking, Recession, Serious, Stocks, Stronger, Threat, Yield curve
New York Times (December 7)
“Stocks have swung wildly since the Omicron variant of the coronavirus emerged, once again raising concerns about the pandemic’s potential to damage the global economy.” In two years of “market upheaval,” a pattern has emerged. “Each bout of pandemic-driven volatility in the stock market since February 2020 has been shorter than the one before, and followed by a recovery to a new high. “
Tags: Coronavirus, Global economy, Losses, Market upheaval, Omicron, Pandemic, Peak, Recovery, S&P 500, Stocks, Volatility
Wall Street Journal (October 7)
“Natural gas stocks are alarmingly low around the world, and prices in most places have never been higher after surging to new records…. Demand has jumped as economies have bounced back from pandemic shutdowns, and the squeeze has caught traders, shipowners and energy executives off guard.” Nations that “have wound down coal-fired plants and become more dependent on gas” are particularly vulnerable and, in some cases, restarting mothballed power plants despite higher GHG emissions.
Tags: Coal, Demand, Economies, Energy, GHG emissions, Natural gas, Pandemic, Prices, Records, Shipowners, Shutdowns, Squeeze, Stocks, Surging, Traders, Vulnerable
Barrons (August 27)
“It has been a rough year for investors in China, especially those who forgot that it’s still a Communist nation.” Investors are fleeing in the wake of “some surprising, and very anticapitalist, moves.” The Chinese market has fallen by “20% in the past six months, while some of its biggest names have dropped more than 40%. Has China become uninvestible? No—but it has gotten a lot more complicated.”
Tags: Anticapitalist, China, Communist, Complicated, Investors, Market, Plummeting, Stocks, Surprising, Uninvestible
Financial Times (June 6)
“The Japanese AGM season will provide rapidly digestible evidence of three things: how empowered activists feel, how awkward the big institutions feel about backing them, and how threatened managements feel by both of those.” The results are unlikely to show real change. “Despite the appearance of change, half of Japanese stocks still trade below book value and carry not just a record value of cash as a proportion of equity, but the largest such ratio in developed markets.”
Tags: Activists, AGM, Appearance, Awkward, Book value, Cash, Change, Empowered, Evidence, Institutions, Japan, Managements, Stocks, Threatened
