On October 31st, millions of children across the U.S. donned costumes and went door to door filling their baskets with candy. Thousands of costume parties were thrown for the adults that enjoy Halloween and many people parked themselves in front of a screen to watch scary movies. There is plenty of research on the psychology of horror films allowing researchers to clearly identify that there are both people who enjoy these movies and those who will not subject themselves to scary movies for any reason. Regardless of which group you fall into for Hollywood horror movies, we were all forced to watch market volatility increase in the month of October as various economic “antagonists” came to the forefront.
October Mid-Month Thoughts on the Market
October 15, 2014 By
Key Points
U.S. equity markets endured their third consecutive week of losses as volatility climbed. The S&P 500 Index was down sharply enduring its largest weekly decline since May 2012. The sell-off can be blamed on a number of factors, with concerns over global growth coming in first on that list. Ongoing angst over the end of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program and trepidation in advance of third-quarter earnings reports can also take their share of the blame.
Sentiment towards airline stocks lowest since 2013.
September 23, 2014 By
Have some airline stocks peaked? $AAL $DAL $UAL $FDX http://goo.gl/cYNj1E
US Ecomomy and European Central Bank (ECB) announcements
September 15, 2014 By
Quick Recap Domestic stocks have experienced a little more volatility than what has been usual this year; however U.S. equities continue their winning ways. Although the August employment data were somewhat disappointing, investors were encouraged by strong manufacturing trends. Events outside of the U.S. also contributed to the positive tone. The European Central Bank (ECB)
Debt Ceiling Debate
September 16, 2013 By
Once again, for the third time since August 2011, we are about to approach the debt ceiling debate. The debt ceiling is the total amount of money that the US Government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing legal obligations, which include Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments. Currently, the debt ceiling is set at $16.7 trillion dollars. For clarification, raising the debt ceiling does not give the government authorization to spend more; it simply allows the Government to finance existing legal obligations that have been made in the past.
Mid-December Outlook
Since the beginning of December, U.S. stocks (S&P 500) are up more than 3%.
The U.S. bond market is right at breakeven for the month and has shown only a fraction of the volatility. Foreign markets are down much more so far in December. Foreign developed markets are down more than 4.5%, and emerging market stocks are down more than 7%. Altogether, the global stock market is down more than 4% for December. As you can probably imagine, market watchers have been fixated on what’s going on in the world’s oil markets. Crude oil is down more than 15% so far this month, and is down almost 45% since June.