July 24, 2021 A sharp selloff on Monday proved short-lived as the S&P 500 rallied 2% this week. Day-traders reportedly swarmed-in to “buy the dip,” picking up stocks at the fastest pace ever. DataTrek estimates retail investors still have $400 billion in cash on the sidelines. Median U.S. home prices just hit a new record. The buying frenzy is being...
July 17, 2021 The S&P 500 dipped 1% this week as investors parsed higher than expected inflation and retail sales. US Treasuries continue to rally, confounding more than a few bond traders. The big news this week was June’s consumer price index (CPI) print, which accelerated the most in 13 years. The Labor Department reported a 5.4% (4.5% core CPI)...
June 12, 2021 We open this week with some exciting news – Silverlight Asset Management is pleased to welcome Louis Sutton as the newest member of our team. Louis recently graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in Applied Mathematics. This summer, Louis will be interning as a Quantitative Analyst. We are leaving the door open for...
If it were a horror movie, they might call it: “Return of the Killer Meme Stocks.” Reddit favorites GameStop and AMC Entertainment are soaring again. In May, GameStop rallied 28%, while AMC jumped 160%. Similar to earlier this year, big returns in meme stocks have brought scary P&L pain to the hedge fund community. Didn’t they learn their lesson in...
May 29, 2021 The great inflation trade paused, bond yields dipped, and the S&P 500 added 1.2% this week. With over 50% of U.S. adults vaccinated and pandemic risk receding, consumers are now ready to re-engage with society. In what the Wall Street Journal dubbed “The Great American Cleanup,” demand is surging for things like deodorant, teeth whitener, haircuts, swimsuits...
March 22, 2021 U.S. stocks finished the week about where they started with the S&P 500 dipping 0.4%. Supply chain issues continue to create supply and demand imbalances. In ‘normal’ years, cargo ships arrive on schedule about 70% of the time. In March of 2021, that number plummeted to 40%. Delays around the world are being driven by a rush...
May 15, 2021 We are pleased to be back this week with a new edition of 5 Things. From the start, 5 Things has been a collaborative effort between Michael Cannivet and Ed Flores. Ed is a former colleague from Fisher Investments who now runs his own company, Hyde & Union Content. Ed has had a lot going on lately...
Buy low, sell high. It sounds so simple, right? Selling “high” (whatever that means exactly) is tricky to execute, though. Recently, the stock market has been on a tear. The S&P 500 index rose 5% in April with record-setting breadth. Over the course of 18 trading sessions this month, 95% or more of the S&P 500’s members traded above their...
When he passed away last week, Bernie Madoff still had 139 years left on his prison sentence. Anyone over the age of 30 remembers the story—Madoff swindled thousands of investors for billions of dollars, running one of the most elaborate Ponzi schemes in history. In an ideal world, Madoff’s conviction would have been the ultimate deterrent for fraudsters, purging the...
One of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, Drew Brees, recently announced his retirement from the NFL. Brees is retiring with one Superbowl win, nearly a dozen passing records and a red carpet to the Hall of Fame. But 20 years ago, forecasts for his success were mixed at best. A pre-draft scouting report said Brees “would not come anywhere...
This week, $400 billion in direct stimulus payments began flowing into the bank accounts of US households, courtesy of the American Rescue Plan. The Treasury says $262 billion has already been dispersed with the remainder scheduled to go out in the coming weeks. Any investor must wonder: where will this money go next? “Stimulus checks could accelerate the large inflows...
March 13, 2021 The S&P 500 rose 2.7% this week while bonds continued to selloff. The 10-year treasury yield climbed past 1.6%, breaking above a key technical resistance level. The biggest news this week was President Biden signing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which was passed along party lines. All told, the government has spent nearly $5 trillion in...