Rather than relying on Wall Street forecasts, scary headlines, and fear-mongering social media posts, the oil futures curve provides the collective judgment of future oil prices from the most informed and financially committed market participants — traders, producers, refiners, and hedgers. Oil, like most commodities, trades in a series of contracts based on future delivery […]
The Iran conflict has dominated the headlines, with the financial media primarily focusing on rising oil prices. While higher oil prices can certainly impact the economy, the dollar’s surge, which we hear little of, is an equally consequential market and economic development. Moreover, the appreciating dollar’s ripple effects are being felt across asset classes in […]
Bloomberg writes: “Iran War Oil ShockThreatens to Unleash Wave of Global Inflation.” To be fair, the article is not as pessimistic as the title suggests. However, the fear that significantly higher, sustained oil prices will unleash a wave of inflation is gaining popularity and merits discussion. We start with math to address the historical relationship […]
Increasing corporate credit spreads, or a growing divergence between corporate bond yields and similar-maturity Treasury yields, can be an omen of stock market weakness. Recent troublesome defaults in the private credit markets are showing signs of spreading concern to the more liquid corporate debt markets. Thus, it’s appropriate to review corporate credit spreads. in the […]
The question for investors is how the Iranian conflict will affect the stock market. The markets’ initial reaction on Sunday was concern as the S&P 500 fell by over 1%, crude oil rose nearly 10%, and precious metals rallied. Within 12 hours, many of the substantial gains or losses, except oil, were reversed. However, stocks, […]
The heatmap below, courtesy of FinViz, shows the one-month performance of the S&P 500 financial sector stocks. As shown, Berkshire Hathaway and the insurance companies are higher over the period, while the large majority of the remaining financial sector stocks struggle. For context, the S&P 500 was down 2.80% over the same period. There appear […]
In our February 3rd Commentary, we discussed the recent woes negatively impacting private credit funds. The concerns began last year with the bankruptcies of Tricolor and First Brands and continue to mount, as evidenced by the share prices of some private credit managers shown below. Adding to market worries is fresh news of a $1.3 […]
Yet again, Nvidia delivers another incredible earnings report, reinforcing that the AI investment boom continues. As we show below, they posted annual revenue growth of of 73%, handily beating Wall Street forecasts. Most importantly, strong earnings and robust forward guidance confirm that their customers continue to aggressively expand AI infrastructure. Nvidia delivers the critical computing […]
In early November, we sounded the alarm about a recent Hindenburg Omen. Per the Commentary’s summary: Bottom line: market breadth is horrendous and will likely lead to a rotation favoring out-of-favor sectors and stocks. Thus, it’s not surprising that the Hindenburg Omen was triggered. If we continue to see more of these Omens, the threat […]