The Dow lagging today. Value stocks (IVE) and financials (XLF) look like they are turning down from the month's high.
Whelp, the SPX has done it With today's new closing ATH, it has now closed at a new ATH 53 times in total this year thus far even as the month of August isn't even officially completed yet. I was curious if that had ever happened in the history of records being tracked for the SPX, and lo and behold found out that it never did. Yep, indeed this is the first time the SPX has recorded this many closing ATHs in the year this quickly. Worth noting that the all-time record for closing ATHs for a full year is 77 which was achieved in 1995. With still 4 months to play, what's another 24 new closing highs from here to tie the mark, and 25 to break it? Also worth noting that with today's new closing high also makes it 12 ATH closes for the SPX this month (most in any August years since 1929 when it did 13). Tomorrow could tie the record if it should close at a new ATH again.
PayPal is looking to launch a stock-trading platform for customers (cnbc.com) Not surprised I guess. SQ has been offering stock trading for awhile from its Cash APP
BTW, I had totally forgotten to mention this earlier, but am now short the Spuz from 4532. Market up 8 out of the the past 9 days and at ATHs to boot. As mention in my post earlier, the S&P has closed at a new high 12 times this month, which is just 1 shy of tying the most ever for any August years since..........the 1929 crash lol. Meanwhile, also aforementioned in my earlier post the S&P has made 53 new closing highs up through August. The most in any year up to this point ever in history. My big tell for getting more bearish here is the small caps index that has been lagging this rally bigly time. Case in point. The Russell 2000 had its first close beneath its 200 day moving average the other week in 266 days. Which just so happened to be the 11th longest such streak ever. Couple this with the fact that we are heading into one of the more volatile periods all year for the equity markets historically speaking in September and October. And with all the other issues going on here and abroad with the COVID pandemic, and all of the geopolitical noise of late (which admittedly I mostly tune out entirely most of the time), that to me spells at the bare minimum a pause or break in the market uptrend. Could turn out to be another quick mini-dip that lasts all but a few days, and then RYFOR’s back to ATHs again, or it could turn out to be something more meaningful. Me? I’m admittedly leaning in something more meaningful and a bit more lasting than just a couple of days... And I feel pretty good about the r/r (risk / reward) about my shorts at these levels then I have in a very long time lol. This could certainly blow up in my face, albeit I’m not risking too much here. Have my stop just 16 ticks over the ATH. Giving it a bit of wiggle room if you will. Feel like the downside potential over the upside is much greater here. So we’ll see how it works out. Truth be told here, I’m actually typing this post on my phone as I’m largely out and about this week as it’s the final (unofficial) week to the summer this week. So I’m not really keeping very close tabs on the market action this week. But just felt this was about as glorious as a short entry on the Spuz as I’ll possible see in a very long time right now lol. I only missed top ticking my entry this by like 3 handle too lol. It’s been a very long time that I actually felt good about a counter trend move here like I do right about now. Will update y’all’s as we go along. GL to you guys the rest of this week out!
Making an aside here; Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos' trial begins next month. In 2014, Elizabeth Holmes, then 30 years old, was on top of the world. A Stanford University drop-out, she had founded a company valued at $9bn (£6.5bn) for supposedly bringing about a revolution in diagnosing disease. The technology she touted didn't work at all, and by 2018 the company she founded had collapsed. Ms Holmes, now 37, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the 12 charges of fraud against her...Her trial which begins next month, US v Elizabeth Holmes, et al, will be closely watched and she is expected to plead not guilty. And in a twist, it emerged this weekend that her lawyers will argue that her ex-boyfriend and business partner, Manesh "Sunny" Balwani, sexually abused and emotionally controlled her at the time of the alleged crimes, impairing her mental state. Mr Balwani, 56, who faces the same fraud charges, called the claims "outrageous". I liked this anecdote: At 18, she already displayed an intransigence that would apparently continue and drive the company she would found the following year. Phyllis Gardner, an expert in clinical pharmacology at Stanford, recalled discussing Ms Holmes's skin patch idea and telling her it "wouldn't work". "She just stared through me," Dr Gardner tells the BBC. "And she just seemed absolutely confident of her own brilliance. She wasn't interested in my expertise and it was upsetting." https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58336998
Good morning contrarians! Stock futures are higher as of 0630. Small caps are leading things, usually a pretty good gauge of risk appetite. Russell 2000 up 0.3%. Dow Jones Industrials, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all up about 0.1%. This follows a 53rd record close of the year for the S&P yesterday. The index is about to close its seventh straight winning month. That’s the longest streak since December 2017 (10 months). Worth noting that 2017 was a period of interest rate tightening. Something to keep in mind for those expecting the bull market to come to a screeching halt once we do get higher interest rates. Not much on today’s calendar. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index is due at 1000. A reading of 124 is expected, which would be a ninth straight increase. This is seen as a solid indicator that Americans are out buying stuff they don’t need. Also some earnings: NetEase (NTES) just beat on revenues, which the market appears to like (shares up 2.5% in the premarket). We’re waiting to hear from Designer Brands (DBI), the former Designer Shoe Warehouse. After the close we have CrowdStrike (CRWD). Should be a pretty slow day to wrap up August. Not expecting much in the way of volumes the rest of this week either. Everybody’s on holiday. https://contrarianpod.substack.com/p/consumer-confidence-daily-contrarian
Wells Fargo Risks Regulatory Action Over Pace of Restitution (yahoo.com) WFC under pressure today, down over 5%
Good morning contrarians! Stock futures are higher this morning, with small caps leading the way again. Russell 2000 up 0.6%. Dow Industrials and S&P 500 about 0.3% to the good. Nasdaq about 0.2% higher. Those numbers as of 0620. This follows small losses yesterday that didn’t stop the S&P from finishing August with a seventh straight losing month. You’ll be hearing a lot of commentary today about how September is historically the worst month of the year for stocks. Indeed we are (over)due for a correction of some sort. But then these things never seem to happen when they’re supposed to. And of course the historical record is no predictor of future results. Today we have a couple of economic reports worth watching. First, ADP Nonfarm Payrolls are out at 0815. Expectations there are for 613,000 new jobs, almost double last month’s 330,000 reading. This report has been pretty tough to predict. The ISM Manufacturing PMI for August is out at 1000. Expectations there are for a reading of 58.6, slightly below the 59.5 level seen in July’s report but well above the 50 gauge separating expansion from contraction.. More interesting than the actual number will be the commentary from respondents, especially around supply chains. (Last month these were “slowly, very slowly filling up,” according to one respondent). Finally, some earnings. Discount retailer Five Below (FIVE), cybersecurity firm Okta (OKTA), and pet shop e-tailer Chewy (CHWY) are due to report after the close at 1600. We’re supposed to get Campbell’s Soup (CPB) at some point too. Subscribe to these reports and the accompanying podcast at ContrarianPod.substack.com.
Jobs report this Friday then next Tuesday a lot of traders are supposed to be back from summer. Maybe we will see more volume and volatility starting next week
Good morning contrarians! Stock futures are up a bit as of 0645. Dow Industrials, S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Russell all up about 0.2%. It’s Thursday, so we have initial jobless claims out at 0830. Economists expect 345,000 new claims this week, slightly below last week’s 353,000 and continuing a downward trend for this datapoint. If you look at the chart (above), the numbers have stayed consistently low for several months now, an indication the economy is well beyond the worst of the pandemic. (You can get the chart to look even more dramatic by zooming in on the y-axis, a favorite trick of journalists and economists). Speaking of moving in the right direction, we also have the U.S. trade balance, which has showed a widening deficit. It’s expected to come in at $71 billion this month, down a bit from the $75.7 billion level seen in July but quite a bit lower than the $40 billion or so level seen at the height of the pandemic. This is bad for mercantilists and those who think the U.S. should make all its own stuff, but good for the global economy, most of which is built around shipping stuff to Americans (mostly stuff Americans don’t need, though that’s besides the point here). This is out at 0830 as well. U.S. factory orders are out at 1000. This is a good gauge of what American manufacturers are up to. We do still make some stuff here (in fact more than we did as recently as a few years ago. Its called on-shoring or re-shoring). On the earnings front, we are due to hear from some retailers in the pre-market: Land’s End (LE), American Eagle Outfitters (AEO), Signet Jewelers (SIG). After the close we have DocuSign (DOCU) and Broadcom (AVGO). Ford (F) is due to report at some point today as well. Should be slow again though, for at least another day.
Onto our fear-not call of the day from JPMorgan strategists who say that until retail investors stop charging into stocks, markets probably don’t have too much to worry about. “What could cause an equity market correction? This question is admittedly difficult to answer. So far this year, retail investors have been buying stocks and equity funds at such a steady and strong pace that makes an equity correction looking rather unlikely,” wrote Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and a team of strategists in a note late Wednesday. The strategists point to year-to-date equity fund flows of nearly $700 billion, or more than $1 trillion annualized, well above the prior 2017 record high of $629 billion. Those flows have not only pushed stocks higher, but forced other investors into equities, explains Panigirtzoglou and the team. “As certain retail investors, most likely the younger cohorts, buy stocks and equity funds aggressively they push the equity market up strongly, making ‘other’ retail investors, i.e. the older cohorts, inadvertently more overweight equities,” he said. And the latter group has been buying bond funds to try and rebalance, which has brought those flows near to a previous record high seen in 2019, said the bank. full story: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a...a-correction-at-bay-says-jpmorgan-11630579921 There's that 2017 year again. The thing about reaching these extremes is the correction comes (think about what the ARK funds have seen this year). Looking at the market in 2018, it largely went sideways and finished -6%. As for the bond funds that is a nice little explanation. They mention 2019 being the record high for bonds...well the year 2020 for TLT also saw a couple of corrections after peaking in March; one 14% drop in March, then a bounce and then another 20% drop that went into 2021.
Exclusive: Reddit seeks to hire advisers for U.S. IPO -sources | Reuters Maybe the WSB guys can push the prices sharply higher on the IPO day
