The Dividend Cafe

The weekly jobless claims came in at 1.87 million, and continuing claims totaled 21.5 million. We will get the official unemployment number for the month of May from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tomorrow morning. The numbers today were about as bad as expected if not a bit worse, whereas yesterday’s number was exponentially better than expected. More on all of that in tomorrow’s Dividend Cafe! L...

The market exploded 527 points higher today, now well past 26,000 on the Dow, and in the high range of our general short term target. REIT’s, financials, and energy names led the way today. And while the question of, “how can markets be going higher when _ __ ” are completely understandable and reasonable, the answer(s) remain no different regardless of how you fill in that blank. First, markets n...

Early on in the COVID affair my general feeling was that the most ignored yet needed data point was the recovery rate, as first three people I knew tested positive and quickly recovered, then eight, then twenty, then ~thirty, etc. The key timing issue was that a significant portion of the people I knew early on that tested positive were already recovered by the time they got their test results, as...

This is the Replay of the National Video Call hosted by David L. Bahnsen- Markets are continuing to shock investors and a wide array of interpretations of health data and economic data are circulating. We will delve into all of this and more. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

I am constantly challenging myself to get my applications of “first things” right in the investment world, but my principles themselves are not constantly changing. I say that with pride. The challenge that exists for the investment professional who has done the work of developing operative principles is to constantly evaluate their application of said principles, to alter, change, adjust, or modi...

The market pointed to a modest up opening this morning in the overnight futures, and it did just that. And the market stayed up ~100-200 points throughout the day, until the final hour of trading where it went from +150 to -150. The media has reported it as a combination of news that POTUS was signing an executive order trying to reign in social media companies as well as news that the White House...

First of all, please note our bi-weekly national video call this coming Monday, June 1, at 11:00am pacific time. I plan to address some things Monday I have not yet addressed through this COVID period, and invite your presence on the call. The market exploded 550 points higher today and is now up over 1,100 points in the last two days and ~2,500 points in less than two weeks. Without any direct ne...

The market was up 530 points today behind extraordinary optimism in economic re-opening and directional good news on a vaccine development (more on both below – a lot on the health side). Futures had pointed to a ~300 point move higher throughout Memorial Day,and the Nikkei in Japan surged over 500 points last night (now back above 21,000). Futures in the U.S. were +500 when I woke up this morning...

And in this week's Dividend Cafe we are going to dive into a bunch of these subjects - not because they are abnormal or extraordinary, but because they are normal. The normal reality of financial markets and of being engaged in the management of such continues its beat. And though I far prefer to do my analysis and work from my office with my team versus the sub-optimal conditions of quarantine, I...

The market was down a hundred points today, and basically stayed between flat and down one hundred all day. Oil remains around $34/barrel. Muni bonds continued about ten consecutive days of trading well. Corporates were off a tad. And syndicated loans seemed to be up a tad despite equity markets being off a tad. Weekly initial jobless claims came in at 2.4 million, bringing the total number to 38...

The market rallied +370 points today, making back the points it was down yesterday, leaving the Dow through Wednesday with the nearly +1,000 point gain from Monday. Oil is approaching $34 after a +5% move today. It was a healthy day for risk assets across the board. And speaking of health, there is some truly good news to report on that front as well … Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe...

The market was down 100 points or so in pre-market at 3:15am today, and stayed close to flat or modestly down until the open. It bounced a round a bit, then found the flat line and stayed there most of the day, before then seeing a substantial sell-off in the last 45 minutes of trading (see chart below). A report circulated just before the market sell-off that yesterday’s positive report on early...

Chief Investment Officer David L. Bahnsen answers questions from investors on markets and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

What I want to do, starting in this week’s Dividend Cafe, but really in the weeks and months to come, is to examine the truly significant macroeconomic forces that are relevant to investors, and to explore investment solutions that match the moment. I do not believe advisors and investors can consider solutions intelligently if they have not considered what they are trying to solve intelligently....

The market closed up almost 400 points today after an intra-day session that was surely one of the weirdest I have seen in a couple weeks. Futures were down 100-200 all morning pre-market, and went down further after the initial jobless claims number came in at 2.98 million (the number had been expected to be closer to 2.7 million). The market went down as much as 450 points before rallying back a...

Futures were down last night, then up this morning, then went flat just as the market opened this morning. By the time the market open was catching steam downward pressure was on stocks, and that downward pressure accelerated a few hours after the open, and then stayed down but level the rest of the day. Stocks actually closed 180 points off their low of the day, but still down 500 points on the d...

In the height of market violence throughout March and April it was routine that the overnight futures would do one thing, the opening the next morning something totally different, and the action throughout the day something different still. Sometimes even then there was no clarity as to how things would end up as 400+ point moves down or up even in the final hour of trading were extremely common (...

The S&P was flat today, the Nasdaq was up, and the Dow was down 100 points, so let’s call it a flat day overall. We will cover our normal categories and take a few detours as well as we launch another market week in the midst of this COVID pandemic … As for health data, the 1.5% case growth over the weekend is what we have been waiting for – the smallest case growth in the U.S. since all of th...

This week’s Dividend Cafe will do all it generally sets out to do.  We will look at the overall economy, and I even close with something I don’t often do: A summary of our short term, medium term, and long term outlooks.  There is quite a deep dive into the jobs data, the economic picture, the state of the U.S. energy industry, some post-COVID economic realities, and much, much more.  But there al...

Happy “Flash Crash” anniversary, to those who remember that fateful day (ten years ago today). I remember it like it was yesterday, ending a meeting with clients early (who were sitting in my office facing me at the time, as I faced the television over their shoulders that was informing me of the collapsing market). I began trading in client accounts heavily after the prematurely-ended meeting, an...

The market was up 300+ points most of the day today, and just as the sell-off faded yesterday, the rally faded today, with the market closing up 133 points (though the S&P was up 34 bps more than the Dow). Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Chief Investment Officer David L. Bahnsen answers questions from investors on markets and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

I learned a lot in the month of April as well, and I want to share it with you today.  I am either excited to tell you or sorry to tell you that this week's Dividend Cafe is the longest one I have ever written, but also the most important one I have ever written.  The length of it is just simply because of the sheer ambition of all I am trying to cover this week.  There are some investment opportu...

After the big move up the last two days, we closed the extraordinary month of April with a down-300 point day. Weekly jobless claims came in at 3.8 million, bringing the aggregate new unemployment claims since the COVID crisis began to ~30 million. Oil prices for the June contract were up ~$4 today (+25%), and are up ~$8 since Monday. April ends up being the biggest month up in the stock market si...

The Bahnsen Group Investment Committee is back together for the first time in weeks to discuss all matters of the market, Covid, and investing. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com