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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit contrarianpod.substack.com Good morning contrarians! It is Thursday, Jan. 5. Stocks bounced around yesterday before closing green. Minutes from the December Fed meeting didn’t seem to satisfy anybody but the S&P 500 added 0.8% for the day. More news of layoffs at big tech: Amazon ($AMZN ) will lay off 18,000 workers , more than the 10,0...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit contrarianpod.substack.com Good morning contrarians! It is Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023. The first official trading day of the year. Last year was ugly and we enter 2023 facing some rather vexing questions: Will there be a recession? If so, how painful will it be for the economy and for markets? Will the Fed blink pivot?

Good morning contrarians! It is Friday, Dec. 23. Happy Christmas Eve eve. Stocks cratered yesterday, led by tech. The Nasdaq was down more than 2% as the S&P 500 dropped by 1.5%. This was actually well off the lows of the day. Again no clear catalyst for the move. Some concerns about Micron ($MU ) earnings, which happened the previous night. Tesla ($TSLA ) continues to be a point of concern as wel...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit contrarianpod.substack.com Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Dec. 21. Stocks treaded water yesterday. Only the Russell 2000 which tracks small caps moved at all from the break-even point, gaining 0.7%. State of Play Earnings from Nike ($NKE ) and FedEx ($FDX ) topped estimates after yesterday’s close, which appears to have help...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit contrarianpod.substack.com Good morning contrarians! It is Tuesday, Dec. 20. Stocks sold off again yesterday with tech seeing the worst of it. The Nasdaq was down 1.5% on the day. The S&P 500 gave up 0.9%. Again no clear catalyst for the move. More sellers than buyers. State of Play The Bank of Japan surprised investors overnight by ann...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit contrarianpod.substack.com Good morning contrarians! It is Monday, Dec. 19. Stocks closed lower on Friday to drop for the second straight week. It’s been a rough December with the S&P 500 down 5.5% so far on the month. Not exactly what we were expecting in terms of Santa Claus rallies.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit contrarianpod.substack.com Good morning contrarians! It is Thursday, Dec. 15. Stocks sold off yesterday after a volatile day of trading. The Fed raised interest rates by 50 basis points as expected, and kept the policy statement all but unchanged , but expectations of higher interest rates into next year spooked markets a bit. Then Jero...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit contrarianpod.substack.com Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Dec. 14. Stocks closed higher yesterday, with the Nasdaq’s 1% gain leading major US indexes. The S&P 500 added 0.7%. The Consumer Price Index came in softer than anticipated, leading to a substantial rally before the open. That all but melted away by mid-day before bu...

Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Dec. 7. Stocks sold off again yesterday, apparently due to recession fears. These were voiced from authoritative sources, in the form of two major Wall Street bank CEOs: Goldman Sachs’s David Solomon and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon. The former spoke at a conference about a slowing economy and the latter went on CNBC to talk about how inflation would erode cons...

Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Nov. 30. Yesterday was a pretty quiet trading day as anticipated. Not much movement at all. The Nasdaq’s 0.6% decline was the major move of the day. Today’s briefing and podcast is free to all subscribers. To receive this every market day morning and take advantage of a host of other benefits, consider becoming a paid subscriber. State of Play As of 0630,...

Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Nov. 23. Thanksgiving Eve in the US. Stocks rallied yesterday, led by the Nasdaq which added 1.4%. Cryptos recaptured some ground, with Bitcoin regaining the $16,000 level. Premium subscribers can discuss the crypto death watch on the substack chat here (requires the app, currently only available in iOS). State of Play As of 0615, things are pretty quiet:...

Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Nov. 9. Join today’s discussion on the substack app and discuss the crypto death watch here . Stocks advanced yesterday but the big story was in cryptos, which suffered a major meltdown after the exchange FTX reported a liquidity crunch and eventually agreed to a deal with Binance. Bitcoin dropped by double digit percent and briefly fell to a new 52-week...

Good morning contrarians! It is Tuesday, Nov. 8. Election Day in the US, in case you haven’t heard… State of Play As of 0630, we’re struggling for direction a little bit: * Stock futures are are up a tiny bit, with the Nasdaq set to open about 0.3% higher; * Cryptos are dropping, with Bitcoin down 5% to trade around $19,700; * Commodities are losing some ground, with WTI crude oil down 1% to trade...

Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Nov. 2. Fed Day. State of Play As of 0615 all is quiet ahead of the Fed: * Stock futures are flat, with major US indexes not moving much from their break-even point; * Bonds are seeing a few bids at the short end of the curve, with the yield on the 2-year down 2 basis points to 4.52%, which is still higher than it was yesterday. The 10-year is flat at 4.0...

Good morning contrarians! It is Friday, Oct. 28. Tech stocks sold off again yesterday after disappointing earnings from $META as the Nasdaq dropped by more than 1%. For whatever reason this did not hit other parts of the market (or maybe not yet) as the Dow Industrial Average rose for the fifth straight day and is on track for a 3% gain for the week. (Today’s briefing is free. If you like it and w...

Good morning contrarians! It is Friday, Oct. 14. Yesterday was one of the craziest days on Wall Street that you’re likely to experience. First, a hotter-than-anticipated inflation report caused stocks to sell off at the open. Then things suddenly reversed around mid-morning. The rebound was as ferocious as it was inexplicable, with no immediate catalysts emerging to justify the change in sentiment...

Good morning contrarians! It is Wednesday, Oct. 12. Stocks finished lower yesterday with all indexes but the Dow Industrials losing ground on the day. The. Nasdaq was the worst offender, giving up more than 1%. Stocks were actually poised for a winning day until Bank of England Governor Mark Bailey said UK pensions had until Friday to finish rebalancing their positions. That led to a quick reversa...

Good morning contrarians! It is Friday, Oct. 7. Stocks finished lower yesterday, dropping into the close. Dow Industrials declined by 1.2% to lead major US indexes down whilst the S&P 500 fell by 1%. We got some bad news after the close from AMD ($AMD ), which pre-announced earnings that fell well short of estimates. That stock is down close to 6% overnight. State of Play As of 0630 there isn’t mu...

Good morning contrarians! It is Thursday, Sept. 29. Stocks rallied yesterday after the Bank of England said it would intervene in bond markets. The central bank will buy £65 billion worth of long-dated gilts at an “urgent pace” and postpone plans for quantitative tightening. The Wall Street Journal has a good piece that gets into the quandary the BOE was in. Apparently pensions were on the hook fo...

Axel Merk, president and chief investment officer at Merk Investments, joins the podcast to discuss his views on the Federal Reserve (and potential 'Fed pivot') ahead of next week's FOMC meeting and the stage of the economic cycle, This mini-episode was made available to premium subscribers the day it was recorded. Become a premium subscriber here Highlights: * The Fed meets next week: will it be...

Good morning contrarians! It is Friday, Sept. 16. Stocks dropped again yesterday, with tech seeing the worst of it. The Nasdaq fell by 1.4%. The S&P 500 declined by 1.1%. Things went from bad to worse after the close, with a profit warning from FedEx ($FDX ). The company blamed macroeconomic weakness in Asia and Europe. Perhaps more importantly, its CEO told CNBC he expects a worldwide recession t...

Good morning contrarians! It is Tuesday, Sept. 13. Inflation day, with the CPI due out at 0830. Stocks advanced yesterday for the fourth day in a row. The Nasdaq led things again, adding 1.3%. The S&P 500 was up 1.1%. Again no obvious catalyst for the move higher, other than maybe oversold conditions and optimism over Ukrainian advances versus Russia. State of Play As of 0610, all is pretty quiet...

Good morning contrarians! It is Friday, August 26. Stocks rallied yesterday, led by tech. The Nasdaq gained 1.7% on the day whilst the S&P 500 added about 1.5%. Major U.S. indexes are still on track for the second straight losing week. State of Play As of 0630 it looks like investors are paring their bullish bets a bit: * Stock futures are down, with the Nasdaq off 0.5% and S&P 0.3% lower; * Crypt...

Good morning contrarians! It is Thursday, Aug. 11. Stocks staged a major rally yesterday after inflation came in softer than anticipated. The Nasdaq was up almost 3% on the day with the S&P 500 gaining more than 2%. After the close, positive earnings from Disney ($DIS ) helped cement the positive mood. Disney shares are up 8% overnight. State of Play As of 0630, it looks like risk is still on: * S...

Good morning contrarians! Stocks treaded water yesterday. There simply wasn’t much movement in the broader indexes, though individual stocks bounced around pretty significantly on earnings. Expedia ($EXPE ) was a major winner there, up 7% overnight. Warner Bros Discovery ($WBD ), recently spun out of AT&T ($T ) a major loser, down 10%. State of Play As of 0630, all is quiet: * Stock futures are fl...