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Posts Tagged ‘Better than best’

Prepared?

March 5th, 2020 by Kurt L. Smith

From record high to worst week since the financial crisis in October 2008, stocks ended thirty-plus years of bull in dramatic fashion. The top bull in the better than best of recent asset pricing is taking the leadership role in the great deflate.

From a high of 29,568 on February 12 to an end of month low of 24,681, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost over 4,000 points with 3,600 of it in one week (source: Bloomberg). This is not your normal pull back. This is not the buy the dip (one more time!). This is the end we have been talking about since November 2017 in my letter, Top of Tops. In that letter I noted 23,500 as the all-time high turning point for stocks. The extra run since then was a bonus.

You all know I have been writing about asset prices being at the end of something. From the depths of the financial crisis in March 2009 to February 2020, it was quite a ride. A ride I believed would be over (in November 2017) but continued through Groundhog Day (after Groundhog Day) 2020.

Consequential? Unbelievably so. This isn’t even the worst part. From my point of view stock investors “haven’t lost anything” as they are still ahead of November 2017. No, the worst part is ahead of us because it involves the bond market.

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Ground Hog Day

February 24th, 2020 by Kurt L. Smith

Though Ground Hog Day was officially February 2nd, I am referencing the 1993 movie starring Bill Murray. I feel like I am reliving the same day over and over again in the market place.

The Dow Jones Industrials traded today at the same level it did six weeks ago. Yet every morning I am seemingly greeted with a new intraday high for stocks. Bonds are scarce, yet every day I hope to scratch and claw my way to several worthwhile pieces.

Last month I wrote that asset prices were Better Than Best. After weeks of Ground Hog Days, guess what?  Prices are still Better Than Best. That is the danger in delaying writing this letter in hopes of writing something new. There is nothing new.

Even when we think there is something new (in Washington or in Wuhan), it is seemingly of little consequence. I don’t write about those types of things anyway, preferring to watch what the markets are telling me. Obviously, they have been telling me the transition from upward trend in prices to downward trend is taking its time. Does that mean six more weeks of this like the groundhog prognosticates? We will know when the markets tell us.

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