re: Apple's phone business Google's report last night included news about the Pixel; Google says there is pressure on high end phones. Of course, Google is also suffering from slowing ad revenues. I think the big thing for Apple will be their Services side of the business.
couple noteworthy stats i came across in my afternoon reads thought was worth sharing here. since WWII, the spx has been green a perfect 18 for 18 a year after midterms with the avg. return up +14%. historically speaking we're in the sweet spot right now, based on the 4 year presidential cycle. breaking down the 4 year presidential cycle and the best and worst 6 months of the year today was the last day of the best 6 months of the entire 4 year cycle. looks like it played out again with the spx up over 8% during this 6 month period.
couple more here... so since the great depression the spx has been up over +15% ytd after the first 4 months of the year only 6 times (including this year). each time was a pre-election year too. now that we're heading into may (which is typically called "sell in may go away") did you know that the past 6 may's have actually closed up green. finally, today marked the 3rd consecutive ATH close for the spx, which is the longest since it did 4 back in late aug. of last year. the record is 12 in a row in 1929 though. edit: oh and i also just noted that the SPX is up each of the first 4 months to kick off a year since 2013. that's only happened 15 other times since 1950. 12 months later the spx was higher 12 of those times, up over +13% on avg.
last post here (sorry), here is a quick look at fed funds futures as we have the fed meeting tomorrow it's interesting that odds for a cut have actually gone up, despite the rebound in econ. data.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/01/fed-leaves-rates-unchanged.html The central bank held its benchmark rate in a target between 2.25% and 2.5%. The FOMC committee did make a technical adjustment: Interest paid on excess reserves that banks keep at the Fed will now be set at 2.35%, or 0.05 percentage points lower than before.
yeah, he's still talking https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/01/watch-fed-chairman-jerome-powells-news-conference-live.html
Market pulling back, maybe it is a little disappointed that there is not a strong indication that a rate cut is coming
