Banning stock buybacks sounds good in theory to some people. It wouldn’t make sense in practice.
Current Markets
Why the IPO Market is Different This Time
Why this cycle’s IPO class is nothing like the dot-com bubble.
9 Questions I’m Pondering at the Moment
Some random questions I’ve been thinking about lately.
A Market of Stocks
On a total return basis, the S&P 500 is up almost 22% on the year.1 To state the obvious, this means the underlying securities included in the S&P 500 are having a good year as well. But there’s still a wide range in outcomes for the performance of the individual stocks in the S&P. For…
What to Make of a Stock Market That Has Gone Nowhere for a Year-and-a-Half
Recent stock market performance is odd in that 2019 has gone gangbusters but since the start of 2018, stocks have basically gone nowhere. The obvious culprit here is the fact that stocks fell roughly 20% in the 4th quarter of 2018. Here’s a Fortune piece I wrote to put this performance into context. ******* The…
How to Win Any Argument About the Stock Market
Simply change the start and end dates to win any market debate.
Gathering Investment Lessons From the Headlines
Just as everyone projected, interest rates have fallen off a cliff since peaking at more than 3.2% last fall: Just kidding. Basically no one saw this coming: The decline has caught nearly everyone by surprise. In January, none of the 69 economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal predicted yields would fall below 2.5% by…
When Does the Stock Market Go Up?
A reader asks: I read something this past week that, while I trust the source, it seems hard to comprehend, let alone believe… that virtually all of the nearly 30% gain in the S&P 500 since ‘17 has come outside of normal US market trading hours. More specifically, that since January ‘17 just 2% of…
Just the Facts About Market Corrections
The S&P 500 has experienced a correction of at least 5% or worse in 65 out of the past 70 years. Corrections are the price of adsmission in stocks.
What a Strange Round Trip It’s Been
Well that was pretty quick. Since peaking in late-September the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) now has a slightly positive total return, wiping out a nearly 20% loss: It’s hard to believe how quickly sentiment in the market can go from “the world is coming to an end and a recession has already started” to “everything’s…
