CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!

As the presently hot topic of trade rears its head during virtually all of our client revue meetings of late, it becomes abundantly clear to me that many, if not most, folks sympathize with the narrative that the U.S. has been taken advantage of for years by its trading partners, the focus of late being on China.

This Week's Message: Enjoy Your Coffee, But Don't Let It Sway You!

The reality that markets are mere reflections of human action has been a growing theme herein of late. And while that's easy to get, and should go without saying, it is the most important distinction that I hold firmly in mind as I go through my daily and weekly exercises in pursuit of the knowledge of the state of general conditions.

Brief Note On This Morning's Action

Here's from last week's blog post titled "The Shorts Are Back, In Force":

Charts of the Day: Unequivocally Bullish Action

In a Tuesday blog post I offered up the following:

While the trading off of the December 24th low has indeed been bullish (late intraday buying, rallying amid bad news, strong breadth, etc.), I want our clients to understand (if not expect) that a testing of that Christmas Eve low remains a distinct possibility. Although, again, the action of late has been encouraging...

Should the bulls succeed 2600, 2630 (where the next resistance line meets the 50-day moving average [green line]) will be the next big test.

2018 Year-End Letter, Conclusion

Link to Part 1  (What Makes Us Tick)
Link to Part 2  (General Conditions)
Link to Part 3, Sectors  (Steep Corrections During Expansions)
Link to Part 3, Sectors  (Financials and Industrials)
Link to Part 3, Sectors  (Technology)
Link to Part 3, Sectors  (Materials and Energy)
Link to Part 3, Sectors  (Cons. Discretionary & Comm. Svrcs.)
Link to Part 3, Sectors  (Healthcare and Cons. Staples)
Link to Part 3, Sectors  (Utilities and REITs)
Link to Part 4  (Bonds and Gold)
Link to Part 5  (The Dollar)
Link to Part 6  (Global Investing)

In our 2018 year-end message we've presented what we believe to be the characteristics of good portfolio managers. We've expressed the sense of security we gain in the understanding that while not all good investments make money, if we strive to make only good investments the odds are strongly in our clients' favor over the long-term. We highlighted the whys and wherefores of our present sector and regional weightings. We shared our views on the importance of maintaining a global investment mindset and we expounded on why we think that many currency traders once again may be on the wrong side of the dollar going into 2019.

U.S. Housing Not So Bad

Whether we're talking the stock market or economic indicators, we are forever looking at how prices/activity responds to the overall character of the news related to a given market or to a given segment of the economy.

Quote of the Day: The ECB "has the [Eurozone] market's back"

In our 2018 year-end letter's section on the dollar I pointed to low expectations for the Eurozone economy leading to a softer European Central Bank, and how that, along with low relative valuations for Eurozone equities and our view that recession risk for now remains low, makes for a bullish setup for the region's stocks, as well a bearish one for the U.S. dollar (a bullish scenario for equities the world over).