Macro Update: Finally Back in the Green (albeit barely) -- And -- On Jobs and Stocks

Finally, after 15 months without a positive overall score, our proprietary macro index peeked its nose above the zero line this week, albeit barely, coming in at +2.04:

Morning Note: Contagious...

We'll stick mostly to numbers this morning; our macro update, coming your way later today, will have more meat to it.

Yes, stocks have had a very good week (following the opposite last week) as the powers-that-be are deploying their once-a-year (although they can use it twice this year, as it wasn't utilized in 2020) privilege ("budget reconciliation") to pass their COVID relief bill with a mere simple majority. 

This Week's Message: I'm Talking Risk, Not Timing

Sitting here, sifting through the plethora of data, etc. I've accumulated over the past week for the purpose of penning this particular message, I find myself needing to reiterate that (as long-time clients and readers know) I'm anything but a gloomy Gus by nature. It's all about how the pieces (from economic data, to Fed policy [and practice], to valuation, to the fundamental and technical setups across major asset classes, to sentiment, and so on) all presently fit together.

Morning Note: A Hallmark of Every Bubble

As I continue to stress, two things financial markets (in the aggregate) can't live with going forward are higher interest and a rising dollar.

Morning Note: What Laxity Breeds

On the surface, earnings reporting season has been nothing short of impressive thus far. Under the surface.... well, it's all about results relative to expectations leading in. And, as you might imagine, Q4 2020 expectations, relative to where they were a year earlier, had been cut, notably. 

Morning Note: "Confusion Is Our Salvation"

Interest rates and the dollar are up, stocks are up, yesterday's darling, silver, is tanking and, just an FYI, last week's darling GameStop is getting demolished -- as I type.

Morning Note: Not the silver "short squeeze" you might think...

Sliver is all the rage this morning, as the retail trader -- specifically the one who chats on Reddit and trades, or used to trade, on Robin Hood -- is, either through his/her own perceived genius or, ironically, through the discrete egging on by elements he/she is otherwise committed to destroying, is attempting to squeeze the price of the metal (and the funds that track it) higher, and themselves richer in the process.