One area that could show an early sign of weakness resulting from the trade/tariff headlines is in sentiment levels, specifically, sentiment of consumers and business. Just yesterday the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index report showed small businesses remain highly optimistic. The report noted,"The Small Business Optimism Index posted its sixth highest reading in survey history for the month of J...

The economy is not the stock market and vice versa, but positive economic data tends to be supportive of a positive equity market environment. The current environment seems a bit like a Goldilocks one and that might be a cause of concern for some. If one is a writer for business publications it is difficult to find a great deal of negative news. To that end recent articles are focused on predictin...

Today's employment report was strong as nonfarm payrolls increased 213,000 and beat expectations of 190,000. The prior month's report of 223,000 jobs was revised higher to 244,000. In short, a strong jobs report. A positive in the report was the increase in the participation rate to 62.9% versus the prior month's participation rate of 62.7%. The number of unemployed actively looking for jobs jumpe...

So far in 2018 the Dogs of the Dow investment strategy is a losing one relative to the return on both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index. Through the close of business on July 3, the average return of the 2018 Dogs of the Dow equals -3.8% on a price only basis and -2.0% total return. This compares to the price return for the Dow Index of -2.3% and total return of -1.4%. For the...

Thursday this week markets will get another look at oil inventory levels with the release of the weekly EIA Petroleum Status Report. The past few weeks have confirmed strong declines in oil inventory levels. Last week's draw-down was 9.9 million barrels and the prior week saw a contraction of 5.9 million barrels.This normalization of oil supply is pushing oil prices higher, along with less invento...

With last week's final reading on first quarter GDP, the Bureau of Economic Analysis provides a final review of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA). One category worth evaluating is the corporate profits figures. Corporate profits from the NIPA tables are true economic profits from IRS data and not simply profits based on GAAP. In the final GDP report last week, corporate profits with ...

On Thursday the American Association of Individual Investors reported results from the weekly Sentiment Survey and sentiment swung decisively bearish. As noted in the past, the sentiment surveys are contrarian indicators and high levels of bearishness and/or low levels of bullishness can signal equity market turning points. Yesterday's report saw the bull/bear spread swing 24.9 percentage points, ...

Not long ago I was ask to compare current sentiment data provided by the American Association of Individual Investors with the market sentiment levels reached near the peak of the technology bubble. Going a little further, below is a chart showing the individual investor Bull/Bear Spread near or going into the peak of the technology bubble and the peak reached just prior to the financial crisis.As...

Last week I noted the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index reached the second highest level in its 45 year history. As a follow on, the National Association of Manufacturers released their Second Quarter Outlook Survey today and reported manufacturers' optimism registered 95.1%, the highest level ever recorded in the 20-year old survey.Many positive takeaways can be extracted from the survey report....

Much of what has been discussed on financial news networks over the course of the past several days has centered on tariffs and the escalation into a potentially larger trade war. This is the type of negative news that the media enjoys pounding into its readers and listeners. Of course one should not put their head in the sand about potential consequences of an all out trade war, which we believe ...