It looks like the week will start off with a test of August lows–again
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....
Trick or Trend: Today the odds for a U.S.-China trade war that stretches until at least November 2020 went up
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...
As promised: Trump announces retaliation this afternoon to this morning’s new tariffs from China
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...
Powell signals interest rate cuts but says that U.S.-China trade war is outside Fed’s policy framework
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...
Trump launches a new era of U.S.-China unpredictability–markets will love this
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...
China retaliates; Trump promises his retaliation to their retaliation this afternoon
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...
Market struggled to find direction Thursday; I don’t expect much direction ahead of the weekend
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,...
Latest figures show U.S. farmers taking big hit from Trump trade war with China–just what the U.S. economy doesn’t need
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....
The drop in job openings worries me more than an inverted yield curve
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...
Stocks fall in wave of bad news–but hold up better than expected (all things considered)
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...
Market rallies: Nothing matters but tariffs
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...Jim’s Stock Alerts
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