


Replace IVV with RSP in Perfect 5 ETF Portfolio
I’m trying to walk a fine line here. I don’t want to eliminate my exposure to the U.S. stock market, the world’s best performer recently, but I would like to take some profits and reduce my exposure to the highest priced stocks in the U.S. market.Switching from the iShares S&P 500 Core ETF (IVV) to the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF will have that effect.

Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the week ahead watch out for…
When I was small, one of my favorite songs was The Teddy Bears’ Picnic with its warning refrain, “Don’t go out in the woods today, you’ve in for a big surprise. Not exactly designed as investment guidance, but pretty good investment advice all the same. This week will see two potentially big market moving surprises. Potentially.

Odds weaken on a Fed interest rate cut in September
After today’s surprisingly strong May jobs report, the odds for an initial interest rate cut from the Fed at its September 18 meeting weakened considerably

So much for that job market slowdown in May
Employers added 272,000 jobs in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning. That number was well above the 185,000n projected by economists and even higher above the 175,000 in the April report. The financial markets were disappointed with the news since it pushed out the schedule for an initial interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve.A cut a the July 31 Fed meting has now been priced out by the market. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.14% today and the NASDAQ Composite dropped 0.23%

Imagine that! In two days of speculative fever a lot of people lost a lot of money on GameStop–and a few made out like bandits.
GameStop (GME) stock fell as much as 17% in early trading Friday, June 7, after the video game retailer reported quarterly results that missed analyst estimates and announced a stock sale. The came just hours before a highly anticipated livestream from “Roaring Kitty,” an alias used in the past by bullish retail investor Keith Gill. Yesterday GameStock shares had soared 47% on Thursday after “Roaring Kitty” scheduled a YouTube livestream for noon ET on Friday.

And now they tell us: A day before the jobs report the BLS tells us that the employment numbers have been wrong
The Federal Reserve has been telling us over and over again that it’d decision on cutting interest rates depends on the data. Among other things, the Fed wants to see a steady slowdown in the employment market reflected in the data before it cuts interest rates. But what if the data have been wrong? For months? Today in its regular Quarterly Cent of Employment and Wages the Bureau of Labor Statistics raised just that possibility.

Special Report: Trade War! Trade War!! What stocks to sell; what positions to trim (first 4 sells including AAPL)
This Special Report; Trade War! Trade War! gives you my recommendations for what to sell, where to take profits, and where to trim as seen through the lens of a likely global trade war. Here are my choices with my first 3 sells

Slump in factory ISM raises question of how slow is too slow
Be careful what you wish for. Financial markets have been hoping to see signs of a slowing U.S. economy that would let the Federal Reserve begin to cut interest rates. But after the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) manufacturing gauge fell 0.5 point to 48.7 in May, the weakest in three months, in data released on Monday, investors have begun to worry if this much of a slowdown is a good thing.

Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the week ahead don’t expect…
Don’t expect inflation worries to go away. One thing that is keeping inflation worries at full boil is the problem of understanding why inflation has stayed higher than expected for so long. Has something fundamentally changed in the economy? And could that keep inflation higher than expected for longer than now expected? The answer according to a new and disconcerting study from the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank is “yes.” The inflationary impacts from pandemic-era supply chain shocks have largely resolved and the remaining forces that are keeping inflation elevated are “very persistent,” Cleveland Fed economist Randal Verbrugge wrote in a report released on Thursday. Inflation may not return to the U.S. central bank’s 2% target until mid-2027.

PCE inflation rose at slowest pace of 2024 in April
The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of U.S. inflation–the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, which strips out volatile food and energy prices–rose 0.2% in April from March.That was the smallest advance in 2024, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data out Friday. And there was more evidence of a slowing economy today.

Tomorrow’s a big day for inflation, interest rates, and the economy
Friday brings more inflation data— price indexes for April personal income and spending, including the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure. The PCE ran at an annual 2.7% in March and has exceeded the Fed’s 2% inflation target since March 2021.