August 26, 2019 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility |
This morning President Donald Trump told reporters at the Group of Seven summit that over the weekend there had been significant progress in negotiations to end the U.S.-China trade war. “We’ve gotten two calls and very, very good calls,” Trump told reporters at the...
August 25, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The Standard & Poor's 500 has twice bounced back from big drops in August. Back in the first few days of the month, the index fell to 2,844--before bouncing back 3.3% in the next three sessions. A week later the index fell to 2,840 and then bounced back strongly....
August 23, 2019 | Daily JAM |
Our regular (or occasional or perhaps occasionally regular) Friday series (actually running on Friday this week) Trick or Trend looks at what might (or might not) be emerging investible trends. Exclusively on JAM. This post won't run anywhere else. Ever. Today moved...
August 23, 2019 | Daily JAM |
That didn't take long. This afternoon President Donald Trump said he would raise tariffs to retaliation to this morning's move by China to impose a new 10% tariff on $75 billion in U.S. exports to China. Trump's move would increase tariffs already in effect on $250...
August 23, 2019 | Daily JAM, Short Term |
Good news and bad news for investors betting on a signal of lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve in Jerome Powell's speech at today's Jackson Hole central bank festival Financial markets were hoping that Powell would indicate that the Fed is thinking about a...
August 23, 2019 | Daily JAM |
In a Twitter post today, U.S. President Donald Trump asked, “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” It's not really surprising that Trump based the Federal Reserve chair today. Indications are that Trump was disappointed that Powell...
August 23, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility |
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump upstaged Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell this morning. Powell's Jackson Hole speech this morning was supposed to be the day's big market event. (More on this speech in a later post.) But this morning China announced that it would...
August 15, 2019 | Daily JAM, Short Term |
Up 0.43% at 10:12 a.m. on Thursday, the Standard & Poor's 500 index was down by 0.28 by 11.:20 am. Then up again by 0.41% by 12:06 p.m. And down again by 0.03% at 3 p.m. The index rallied into the close, getting as high as 2854.38 at 3:53 before closing a 2847.60,...
August 14, 2019 | Daily JAM |
A U.S. economy facing the possibility of a slowdown sure doesn't need troubles in the Farm Belt. But that's exactly what the farm sector is seeing. New figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that farm income in 2018 was about 50% of what it was in 2013....
August 14, 2019 | Daily JAM, Short Term |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 800.49 points today, or 3.05%; the Standard & Poor's 500 finished 2.93% lower; and the NASDAQ Composite lost 3.02%. One reason for the plunge was an intraday inversion in the Treasury yield curve with the yield on the...
August 14, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
As of noon today New York time, the Standard & Poor's 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average are both down 2.42%. The NASDAQ Composite is lower by 2.78%. The Russell 2000 small cap index has tumbled 2.66%. And the iShare MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) has...
August 13, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Just in case you were wondering: Nothing matters to the stock market except tariffs. I think today's trading proves that. This morning the Trump administration announced that it would delay new 10% tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods set to go into effect on...
