"Genius abhors consensus because when consensus is reached, thinking stops. Stop nodding your head." –Albert Einstein CNBC headlined on April 12th “Dow tumbles 475 points, S&P 500 suffers worst day since January as inflation woes erupt.” Three days later UBS advised investors to prepare not for Fed rate cuts but quite the opposite suggesting “Fed hiking rates to 6.5% is a real risk”. The financial markets had stepped into 2024...
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"There are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics." Mark Twain; North American Review; 1907 S&P Dow Jones Indices, in its commentary for March 2024, headlined “Despite uncertainty surrounding potential Fed rate cuts, economic strength and diminishing recession fears led to the best Q1 U.S. market performance since 2019, with the S&P 500 up 11%.” The S&P 500 returned 3.2% for the month but the equity markets revealed...
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That’s the American Dream, Can only be seen behind closed eyes; Allowed to touch but can’t touch the prize; that’s the hook, The bait and switch of hand is no surprise – “Sleight of Hand” ; Jeremy Betts The February stock market couldn’t find its way to the front page of the March 1st edition of The Wall Street Journal having to settle for a headline on the front of...
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”There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.” WC Fields Providing substance to the thesis that many investment prognosticators would rather be right than rich, the financial press’s take on 2023 was surprisingly curmudgeonly. The Wall Street Journal, in its December 30 edition, headlined “What Did Wall Street Get Right About Markets This Year? Not Much”....
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”I found a dollar the other day, it lay there on the ground; I wondered who had dropped it, and I had to look around…” The Value of a Dollar Poem; Janice M. Pickett CNBC headlined its story of the stock market’s final trading day of November “Dow jumps 500 points to new 2023 high Thursday capping 8% November rally”. Though only separated by a single month, October seemed recast...
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”What is easiest to see is often overlooked”. – Milton H. Erickson After two years, could it have been for the entirety of that time that it really was so simple? Recollecting how many thousands of words have been written debating the prospects for economic recession, inflation rising or falling and the prospects for a notable decline in the stock market due to falling corporate profits, one is struck by...
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Best things dwell out of sight, The pearl, the just – our thoughts. Most shun the public, are legitimate and rare. “Best Things dwell Out of Sight” – Emily Dickinson The Wall Street Journal of September 29th treated its readers with a pair of kid gloves headlining its article describing the performance of that month’s equity markets “Stock-Market Rally Sputters in New World of Soaring Bond Yields” as the months...
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When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Genesis 3:6 The news of the final trading day of August, if it was news, decidedly didn’t seem particularly “new”. “Morgan...
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