Mid Term
April 18, 2023 | COST, Daily JAM, GDX, GLD, GOLD, KO, Mid Term, PEP, RWM, Special Reports |
10 Picks for the Coming Recession. This one is especially difficult. Not only do I face the usual crystal-ball problem that comes up whenever you try to pick an investment for the future–what’s the macro and micro world going to look like in 6 months or a year from now–but I’ve got two big Recession-specific challenges. First, is there actually going to be a Recession in 2023? All the signs, in my opinion, point toward a recession in the second and third quarters, but it’s by no means guaranteed that we’ll have the two quarters of negative GDP growth that’s required by the minimal definition of a recession. And what’s the point, you might well ask, of making picks for a coming recession that never arrives? And, second, how bad will this recession be?
April 18, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
China’s economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace in the first quarter. Gross domestic product grew 4.5% year-on-year in the first three months of the year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Tuesday, faster than the 2.9% in the previous quarter. It beat analyst forecasts for a 4.0% expansion and marked the strongest growth in a year. But investors in Asian financial markets reacted with disappointment
April 18, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
The exact date that the federal government could run out of accounting gimmicks and actually default on the national debt is open to debate. Could be June or July or as late as December or even sometime in 2024. The estimates are all over the block. Which is one reason that the stock market isn’t pricing in this potential event. The timing largely depends on the pace of tax payments. The more the government collects and the sooner, the farther away a default would be. Now with income tax day upon us, Yahoo Finance is reporting two new studies that say a default is on the schedule for earlier than expected.
April 10, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
U.S. households project that inflation a year from now would stand at 4.7%, versus February’s 4.2%, according to the most recent survey from the New York Federal Reserve Bank. This was the first increase in year-ahead expected inflation since October.
April 10, 2023 | AAPL, Daily JAM, Jubak Picks, Mid Term, Morning Briefing, Top 50 Stocks |
Shipments by all PC makers slumped 29% in the first quarter to a level below that in early 2019, according to tech market analysts at IDC. Lenovo Group and Dell Technologies registered drops of more than 30%, while HP (HPQ) was down 24.2%. No major brand was spared from the slowdown, with Asustek Computer Inc. rounding out the top 5 with a 30.3% fall. But Apple (AAPL)let the plunge with personal computer shipments down by 40.5% in the first quarter.
April 6, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Videos |
Today’s topic is The Problem With Goldilocks. This Goldilocks market is dependent on three things: there will be no recession, interest rates will stabilize after one more May hike from the Fed, and we’ll get falling inflation. These three factors are necessary for the porridge to be not too hot and not too cold. The problem? I don’t see how these three factors exist simultaneously. Falling inflation but no recession? I don’t see how we get to lower inflation without something at least close to a recession. I think we need a recession in order for the Fed to stop rate hikes. Oil isn’t helping the situation as OPEC+ voted to cut oil production for a year, and energy-reliant stocks are already showing the effects. Energy prices don’t immediately factor into the Fed’s decision-making, since the Fed focuses on core inflation, which excludes oil and food, but eventually, oil prices affect the market as a whole. Goldilocks may not be in immediate danger of being eaten by the bear, but I wouldn’t sell her an insurance policy.
April 3, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, UNG |
This week’s Trend of the Week: A Bottom in Natural Gas? I think so. United States Natural Gas Fund (NYSEARCA: UNG) is down 50% YTD. The problem with UNG is that expectations were that Europe would be buying a lot of gas due to sanctions on Russian commodities. What happened instead was that Europe did a great job finding ways to fill in the gaps and had a fairly mild winter. On March 28, natural gas was trading at $2.08/million BTUs. At $2.50, many natural gas producers are actually losing money. That means we’re going to see companies slow down production. While inventory was down the slightest bit on March 17 from the week before, overall inventory is still way above normal for this point in the year. So right now, as we move into the summer cooling season, and while prices are depressed, it’s a good time to build positions in this commodity.
April 3, 2023 | COP, Daily JAM, EQNR, Mid Term, Morning Briefing, PXD, USO |
Today the prices of oil and oil stocks have soared. At 11:20 a.m. New York time U.S. crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate was up 5.37% to $79.73 a barrel. International benchmark Brent crude was higher by 5.24% to $84.08 a barrel. Among oil stocks, Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD) was up 3.53%; ExxonMobil (XOM ) was up 5.48%; Chevron (CVX) was up 3.73%; Equinor (EQNR) was up 5.91%; and ConocoPhillips (COP) was up 7.79% The U.S. Oil Fund (USO) was higher by 5.40%.
March 27, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
It’s not like it was easy to find venture capital financing before the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. It’s just that now finding money to fund a startup or raising a round of follow-on financing has gone from difficult to almost impossible. In the last three months of 2022 venture capital funding fell by 61%, according to Pitchbook. Now many more venture capital investors are sitting on the sidelines.
March 25, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
Goldilocks is just about the only thing keeping the current stock market afloat in the face of a storm of worry from a banking crisis, to stubbornly high inflation, and signs of a cooling economy. The Goldilocks story says, Don’t worry about all that. The Federal Reserve is about to pivot on interest rates. At its May 3 meeting, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee might raise interest rates by 25 basis points but that will be the last interest rate increase. And then the Fed will move to start cutting interest rates in the second half of the year with financial markets pricing in as much as 200 basis points of cuts by the end of 2024. And all this will happen, too, without a recession, as the Fed engineers a successful soft landing of the economy and a significant slowdown in inflation.
If you believe that, you should be buying stocks. I don’t believe it. And more importantly, the bond market doesn’t believe it.
March 22, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
Want to know why stock prices have been so resilient in the face of a global banking crisis and the prospect of higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve? FOMA. Fear of missing out. Especially among some of the world’s largest money managers. Some of the world’s biggest investors are looking beyond interest-rate hikes, bank failures, and the threat of recession to one of the greatest fears of all money managers—-missing out on the next big rally, Bloomberg reports.
March 20, 2023 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
Bank shares around the world have lost $460 billion so far in March (as of the close on March 17.) That’s a lot of money. Even these days when a coffee can run you $5.60. That’s the worst loss for the sector since the March 2020 Covid plunge.
