Our Market Commentary

Join The WealthPlan team as we explore topics around investments, practice management, advisor technology, and more.

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SVB Bank and US Depositor Risk

News headlines about the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) are everywhere. At this stage, speculation is rampant as to whether this will be an isolated event or whether other banks will experience similar challenges. Moreover, it is unclear whether this will lead to fallout in other industries for SVB’s depositors. The uncertainty is high…

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A Fresh Look at Money Supply

The economy in the broadest sense is a complex system of multiple inputs, outputs, and interactions between millions of variables and independent agents. As such, it can be a difficult thing to grasp, let alone predict. Nonetheless, economists and professional investors attempt to make predictions about the direction and magnitude of various aspects of the…

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Two Inflation Prints and Earnings Expectations

Last week we had two inflation prints: one for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and one for the Producer Price Index (PPI). While the headline grabber was that the monthly prints were above expectations (and they were) the Fed is nonetheless making considerable progress in its inflation fight as evidenced by both the CPI and…

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Climbing the Wall of Worry

February 13th, 2023 Markets were down last week, taking a break from a run that has been strong so far this year. Investors are somewhat baffled by the market’s rise this year, given the economic and corporate earnings backdrop. It seems to many that the market’s trajectory is totally divorced from economic reality. Many wonder,…

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What’s the S&P Worth?

The rally in stocks so far this year has been impressive. Here are the year-to-date returns for broad market averages through February 3, 2023: Nasdaq Index 14.77%, S&P 500 Index 7.86%, and Dow Jones Industrial average 5.40%. The hotly debated question is: at what level “should” stocks be trading given the Fed’s ongoing inflation battle,…

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Hope is Never a Great Investment Strategy

There is a great deal of discussion in the financial media by professional investors expressing a hope for the so-called “soft landing” as the Fed continues to fight inflationary pressures. Much of what was written and said in the week just passed reflected such hope-filled sentiment in reaction to a rally in stocks so far…

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A Day of Reckoning Fast Approaches

Below is a three-year technical chart of the S&P 500 Index. This chart contains: The daily returns of the index (red and more volatile series) A 50-day moving average (blue line) A 200-day moving average (orange line) A relative strength line at the bottom (also in blue)     Some market participants pay close attention…

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The 2022 Stock Market Stats: Pops and Drops!

Below is a picture of the 2022 US Stock Market daily returns as measured by the S&P 500 Index through December 16th. In looking at the chart below, it’s rather obvious: 2022 will be a down year. The S&P is down 19%… There are ten trading days left in the year; as such, it seems…

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Listen to the Money Talk

  In April of this year (2022), we wrote a piece called “Money Heaven” in which we discussed money creation and destruction in the US economy. Briefly, this was a treatise postulating that unprecedented excess money growth was a leading cause of inflation. Moreover, we discussed the various ways the economy eliminates “excess” money. To…

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Markets Are Seemingly “Climbing the Wall of Worry”

Markets rallied mid-week in response to remarks made on Wednesday by Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chairman Jerome Powell, raising hopes that inflation is receding and that most of the rate increases are behind us. Below is a graph for the week just passed depicting the price performance of popular US stock market indices. You…

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Santa Claus Rally 2022?

Markets were up last week in an abbreviated trading week (see chart below).     As we close November and ring in December, the debate among investors is whether we get a classical year-end “Santa Claus” rally. While a year-end rally has been reliable in the last many years, this year has been full of…

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A Fresh Earnings Perspective

Here’s a fundamental truth: In the long term, stock prices follow earnings. With earnings season for the third quarter largely over, corporate earnings have remained relatively strong while forward earnings estimates are only slightly declining as recession expectations persist. According to FactSet: “Overall, 94% of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported actual results…