Imo, I do think a debt ceiling deal gets done in the final hour. It's become a familiar story with partisan shenanigans creating all this drama until the very last minute.
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At this point, the persistency of the market rally really begs the question if it is indeed a "bear market rally" or the beginning of a new bull market. Let's quickly think this through -
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I don't necessarily agree with some of Harari's base assumptions (e.g. the abscence of a soul) which form some of the foundation for his conclusions. However, I did find a number of his insights very reasonable.
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Friday's jobs number was strong across the board. All numbers beat the estimates and unemployment ticked down yet again. This is good news right?
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Earnings season, at least so far, is turning out not to be as bad as expected. Members of the FAANG's are getting the headlines, but imo, it's some of the other names that are the real story.
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Over the last 50 years or so, the burden of providing for retirement has shifted to a person's retirement accounts. Pensions are few and far between as companies have been able to push that responsibility of managing those retirement assets onto the employees.
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Investor fatigue is becoming more pronounced as the bear market drags on. The S&P 500 has traded in a range for a year now going back to last May, and certainly the calendar year framing of returns in 2022 left a lot to be desired.
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I was reviewing a PowerPoint last week and realized a slide I was using was rather dated. These days, things move pretty fast and it's important to note the changes given what it could imply for markets and policy.
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The fact that the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) still exists as credible is beyond ridiculous imo. This article explains why it doesn't remotely reflect the reality of markets very clearly.
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I just read a really interesting article from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (yes, I realize how nerdy that sounds) It's related to decline in the Labor Participation Rate since its peak in 2000.
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One challenging part of investing is that information is not important...until it is. The SVB mismanagement was "in plain sight" and fine, until it wasn't. This happens all the time and yet people are somehow surprised 😲 when it does begin to matter. It's a byproduct of our human nature and one reason markets will never be "efficient".
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Everyone wants to know what could "break" in the system. After SVB, cracks in the system are appearing but everyone is quick to say - "This isn't 2008." And that's totally fair. A financial crisis is not likely to originate in the same manner as the last one.
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We got the 25 bps I was expecting and markets are all over the place digesting comments. I think it is very noteworthy we did NOT get a pause, much less a pivot here. I believe the market was pricing those possibilities in over the last week or so as we have rebounded back above the 200 MA.
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While the SVB chaos is grabbing all the media attention, the former controlling narrative went unnoticed. Inflation numbers yesterday were pretty much as expected, but that's still not great news.
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The Silicon Valley Bank debacle has been consuming the media for the last week. And for what it is worth, imo, what they did was not actually that unreasonable.
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