January 15, 2025
What You Need to Know Today:
Has inflation stopped slowing? Wednesday’s CPI will tell
With financial markets deeply conflicted about the effects of a Trump Administration’s policies on taxes, the deficit, mass deportations, and sky-high tariffs will have on the economy and interest rates the October Consumer Price Index (CPI) due Wednesday takes on added importance. Wall Street economists expect headline inflation rose 2.6% annually in October, an increase from the 2.4% rise in September. Core inflation, which strips out more volatile food and energy prices, is forecast to have climbed at a 3.3% rate year over year. That would be unchanged from September’s increase.
Hold onto Nvidia for Blackwell chip launch–it’s a big deal even for the AI rocket
I can’t give you a definitive call on the top for this stock and this rally, but I cam sure of one thing, I don’t want to sell Nvidia before the company’s new Blackwell chip architecture has hit full launch speed in late 2024 and 2025. My read is that this is the “perfect” AI chip for this moment in the AI boom.
Saturday Night Quarterback (on a Monday) says, For the week ahead expect..
There won’t be any stock market reaction to the June jobs report due on Friday That’s because the market closes early on July 3 and stays closed for Friday’s Fourth of July holiday. And not because the report isn’t important as the Federal Reserve continues its search for evidence that the labor market is cooling enough to send inflammation down to the bank’s 2% target. The June report is expected to show that the economy added 188,000 jobs in June.
Watch the long-end of the Treasury market–interest rates could be headed up no matter what the Fed does
Wall Street strategists at influential investment giants are starting to recommend buying inflation hedges for 2025.
That means, at the moment, buying at the short-term end of the Treasury market–like 3-month to 12-month bills–and selling at the long-end–like 10-year notes.
BYD sells a record number of EVs in the second quarter as EU tariffs loom
BYD (BYDDF) sold a record number of electric and hybrid cars in the second quarter, according to sales data compiled by Bloomberg. The record sales were driven by price cuts and new technology that extended vehicle range. The record sales come as European Union...
Another reason to worry about U.S. economic growth
The pandemic savings cushions that helped Americans weather high prices in recent years are gone, according to calculations by the San Francisco Federal Reserve. The result is likely to be less spending and more debt pressure on consumers in the lower half of the income spread. Consumers at higher income levels will see any impact outweighed by gains from a booming stock market.
Special Report: 8 Steps to Protect Your Portfolio from the Global Debt Bomb–complete 8 steps
I’ve hi-lighted the key characteristics of the coming global debt bomb explosion that investors MUST include in any plan to protect a portfolio from the explosion of this bomb.
Live Market Report (20 minute delay)
The Search for the Next Shoe to Drop in the Bank Crisis Goes On: What About Commercial Real Estate?
Officials from the White House, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve, are huddling over risks to the banking systems from the $20 trillion market for commercial real estate. Analysts told the Washington Post that this market could be heading for a crash over the next two years thanks to higher interest rates and continued softness in demand after Covid shutdowns. One reason that this market is getting extra attention is that regional banks, already under pressure from problems at Signature and First Republic banks, play a big role in this market for loans to commercial real estate.
Venture capital financing dries up
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.
Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the week ahead expect…
Look for another inflation report this week. This time–on March 31–it’s the Federal Reserve’s favorite inflation model, the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) index. And, there’s potential trouble in this report–if projections from the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank’s Inflation NowCast are accurate.
Goldilocks fails to capture the Federal Reserve (sort of)
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.
Move #3 in my Special Report: 5 Moves for the Next 5 Months
Here’s Step #3 in my 5 Steps for the Next 5 Months Special Report
So what was today all about?
I argued in my YouTube video on Tuesday that this was a market without a trend. So far that seems about right.
Please Watch My New YouTube Video: Quick Pick KBE Bank Stocks ETF
Today’s Quick Pick is SPDR S&P Bank ETF (NYSEARCA: KBE). I’m not suggesting buying this now: I’m suggesting you watch this and buy Put Options on this ETF when the time is right. The SPDR S&P ETF is approximately 80% regional banks. As you can imagine, it took a huge hit during the recent banking scare and would have been a great Put Option last week during the plunge in the sector. Options are a way to leverage the volatility of this market. The recent exit of my VIX Call Option resulted in a 100% gain in about a week. For KBE, I’d look at Put Options that climb in value as the price of the ETF sinks. At the time of recording, KBE was selling at about 37. I’m looking at the June 16 Put at a strike price o 38. At the moment, the Put is deeply underwater but I’ll continue to watch this rally to see when it’s worth it to jump in. At the moment, I suggest you watch this one: Don’t buy just yet but wait for the next shoe to fall in the banking crisis.
Please Watch My YouTube Video: Where is the Contagion?
Today’s topic is Where is the Contagion? I’m not talking about viral diseases, I’m talking about financial market contagion. After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the subsequent shutdowns of Signature and Credit Suisse, investors are naturally asking, who’s next? What happens if this pops up in places we aren’t expecting? The problem is in the financial world, many financial companies and systems are connected. They can act as guarantors for one another, or have obligations to each other that see risk passing from one bank to another. All this creates opportunities for contagion to spread. One of these “contagions” to look at is AT1 bonds, otherwise known as CoCos. At1 bond issued by Credit Suisse become worthless when that bank was taken over by UBS. There are about $280 billion worth of AT1 bonds in the world at the moment. The question is, who owns them? Bloomberg discovered both PIMCO and Invesco hold these CoCos, though not at a level that would cause their collapse. If you’re invested in a bond fund, it’s important to know which kinds are in their portfolios. that’s especially true in the case of bond funds that have looked to beat the yield of treasuries by buying riskier classes of bonds.
Fed raises interest rate by 25 basis points as expected
Not a whole lot of news out of today’s breathlessly awaited meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee. The committee raised its short-term benchmark rate by 25 basis points to a range of 4.75% to 5%. That move had about 80% odds in its favor going into the meeting. The Dot Plot projections kept the interest rate forecast at 5.1% for the end of 2023. That was unchanged from the December Dot Pot projections.
FOMA lives! At least with Big Money
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.
Ahead of the Fed’s decision on interest rates, the signs are that banks are pulling back on lending because of the banking crisis
Ahead of the Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates today, banks look like they’ve cut back on lending as a result of the Silicon Valley Bank/Signature Bank/ etc. crisis. And economists are reminding us all, that a reduction in bank lending because of fear of a banking crisis is just as much a tightening of the money supply as higher interest rates from the Fed.
It’s my VIX Call Options trade all over again–almost
On March 6, I bought the May 17 Call Options with a strike of 23 on the CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (the VIX) when the index traded at 18.61. I figured that the “Fear Index” was so low that it wouldn’t take much to push it and these options higher. A week later the options were up 116% after the VIX climbed to 26.52. Historically, that isn’t a very high reading for the VIX, which can easily hit 35 to 45 when fear engulfs the market. I’m still holding my June 21 Call Options with a strike of $23. But I’ve been looking for a chance to replay that earlier trade. Somehow (LOL) I don’t think this market is done with volatility.
Please Watch My YouTube video: Trend of the Week There is No Trend
This week’s Trend of the Week: There is no Trend. When I was filming this video on Tuesday the 14th, the S&P was up almost 2%, the DOW was up almost 1.5%, the NASDAQ was up 2.23% and the VIX, which had been climbing higher with the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, was down almost 15%. Since filming, the markets dipped sharply with the threat of Credit Suisse going under, and have trended slightly upward since. If you’re going to trade in this market, you have to do one of two things. One thing is to be very fast, and trade on the bounces as they show up. The other tactic is planning ahead. Long-term in this market is about a week. A week prior to filming (3/6) I bought Call Options on the VIX (the volatility index) and I sold them on March 13 with a 108% return. On March 14, however, those VIX Call options were down 27%. Talk about volatility! The trend is, there is no trend. Subscribe to my JubakPicks.com to get timely posts on how to keep up with the chaos. For more options and other volatility plays, subscribe to JubakAM.com.
Market consensus converges on 25 basis point interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve tomorrow
The CME FedWatch Tool, which calculates the odds of a Fed move on interest rates by looking at prices in the Fed Funds Futures market, puts the odds of a 25 basis point interest rate increase from the U.S. central bank tomorrow at 86.4%. That’s up from 73.8% on March 20.
That’s stability? First Republic shares drop another 47% today
Shares of “troubled” (is that fair? just “troubled?”) First Republic Bank (FRC) fell another 47.11% by the close today, March 20, after credit rating company S&P Global lowered the bank’s credit rating for the second time in a week.
Global banking stocks lose $460 billion in March (so far)
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.
Please join me for a live Q&A on YouTube at noon on Tuesday, March 21
A live Q&A!! Watch along on my YouTube channel. Ask your questions live. Get your answers live. Post your questions in advance in the comments to this post. And get them answered live on Tuesday.
With banks still in crisis, are tech sector stocks a beneficiary?
Ok, so Dan Ives is talking his book (or sector at least) but he still raises an interesting point. (Dan Ives is a Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst covering the Technology sector at Wedbush Securities since 2018.) With bank stocks in particular and the financial sector in general in turmoil, will investors looking for steady earnings turn to tech stocks? (Well maybe not all tech stocks but how about Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT)?
Credit Suisse takeover by UBS raises new issues in debt market
Solve one problem; create another one. While the news of UBS Group AG’s takeover of Credit Suisse brought an end to some worries that financial markets would go into Monday without some deal to rescue a bank regulators had called systemically important to the global financial system, the terms of the deal have already started to send shock waves through the bond and derivative markets.
Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the week ahead expect…
The Federal Reserve will meet on Wednesday, March 22 to set interest rates. There are three things to watch from that meeting. First, whether the Fed will raise interest rates or not and by 25 basis points, 50 basis points, or not at all. Second, we will get the first update of the Dot Plot since the December 14 meeting that projects what Fed officials think interest rates, inflation, unemployment, and GDP growth will be at the end of 2023 and 2024. Third, the financial market reaction to the news out of the meeting will tell us if the Fed (as I’d argue) has lost control of the interest rate narrative and that the bond market is now calling the direction and pace of changes in interest rates.
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