Chart of the Day: Not So Fast Folks

I take the opportunity at each client review meeting to bemoan the public emphasis on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. We're talking a market benchmark that consists of merely 30 U.S. stocks and, to make matters stranger, the index is price weighted -- the stocks with the highest share prices have the largest impact on the Dow's performance. 

Consequently, the largest company on the planet, Apple -- in terms of its impact on the index -- plays 7th fiddle (virtually tied with IBM)  to, in order of impact, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, 3m, United Health, McDonalds and Home Depot. 

This Week's Message: North Korea, The Fed, and The Markets in a Nutshell

Our schedule this week requires that we spend less time here on the blog. While we'll certainly step in and offer some perspective should markets demand, for now we expect that the following will be it for the week (save for perhaps the irresistible quick quote or chart here and there).

Chart of the Day: Scrapping NAFTA?... Hmm...

Here's the postscript to a little something I wrote last week:

P.s. As you may know, the North American Free Trade Agreement  (NAFTA) may be on the chopping block. The President has suggested of late that termination of the agreement, at the hands of the U.S., is likely. 

How We'll Remain Globally Relevant -- And a postscript on NAFTA

I know many of our readers sympathize with the notion that it's time to play trade hardball with the rest of the world. Regular readers and clients know that in my view this is a most dangerous notion.

Chart of the Day: Worried About the State of Clean Energy Investment? Don't be!

Investors pumped $66.9 billion into clean energy around the world in 3Q, up 40% from the same period a year earlier, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Wind investment reached $34.3 billion, the highest since 2Q 2016, and surpassed solar investment of $30.5 billion. A $4.5 billion Oklahoma panhandle wind project was the biggest deal in the quarter.

This Week's Message: Again, How on Earth??

Regular readers now know this Jesse Livermore quote all too well:

"Not even a world war can keep the stock market from being a bull market when conditions are bullish, or a bear market when conditions are bearish. And all a man needs to know to make money is to appraise conditions."

This is the one I've heard myself repeating most often during client review meetings of late -- given the relentlessness of the geopolitical risk-related headlines. The process involved in "appraising conditions" is how we here at PWA spend a great deal of our time. 

Tillerson, Gold and The Dollar

The strong setup for stocks -- that we've been illustrating herein since last summer -- remains, and appears to be allowing for a surprising sanguineness among the major averages when it comes to the, let's call it, angst, in Washington. Although it does appear to be playing havoc with a couple of other markets: Specifically currency and gold.