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7am Saturday
April 11, 2020
Good morning!
Well, we are now going into what feels like the 16th week of quarantine, and I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get back to normal. But, what is normal now anyway? I do think there will be some big shifts in what “normal” is for most of us. Some could actually be quite good, but only time will tell.
One thing I know that won’t change is my passion to help you see a vision for your future that is bigger and better than your past. I will continue to share what I’m seeing and experiencing with the hope that it will help you achieve your goals.
Market Update
+ The S&P 500 was up 12.10% for the week.
This was the best week for the S&P 500 since 1974! Hard to believe that we are seeing this kind of strength from the market when we also ended the week on news that 6.6 million people filed a new unemployment claim last week bringing the total to nearly 17 million workers over the past three weeks.
Here’s the daily performance for the S&P 500…
- Monday: +7.03%
- Tuesday: -0.16%
- Wednesday: +3.41%
- Thursday: +1.45%
- Friday: Market Closed
…the S&P 500 is now -17.6% below it’s all time high (2/19/20) and +24.7% off the most recent low (3/23/20).
Notable Opinions
+ Ray Dalio: “We’re heading into a great depression.”
- About Ray: His firm, Bridgewater Associates, manages $160 billion in assets, and he’s the 46th richest person in the world.
- Key quote: “This is not a recession; this is a breakdown. You’re seeing the same thing that happened in the 1930s.”
+ Louise Yamada: The Dow is in a bear market rally.
- About Louise: Legenary market technician.
- Key quote: Talking about the market’s rebound from the March 23rd low… “In our opinion we consider it a bear market rally until proven otherwise.”
- “Bear Market Rally” defined by Investopedia: A sharp, short-term price increase in a stock or market amid a longer-term bear market period. Investors can sometimes misinterpret bear market rallies as markers of the end of a bear market, and so they must be treated with caution.
Bear Market Brews
My opinion is more bullish than Ray Dalio’s, but I can’t disagree with Lousie Yamada’s view that we might retest the March 23rd lows. The market action was quite impressive this past week. I’m much more bullish than I was three weeks ago. With the Fed and the US government using every tool imaginable to keep the economy going the market could surprise us on the upside. And, if the COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to come in under projections we may be able to open the economy back up sooner than we first thought.
For the latest updates on COVID-19 and the impact to the economy and markets, please watch the replay of Thursday’s virtual happy hour, Bear Market Brews.
We covered a lot of ground this week as we discussed 10 developments that are impacting the markets:
- COVID-19 curves are flattening.
- Fauci says U.S. Virus Deaths may be 60k, half of projections.
- There is a lot of talk of re-opening the economy sooner than later.
- Oil prices rebounding as production is cut.
- Jobless claims came in at 6.6 million vs forecast of 5 million…off the record high from last week, but still much higher than expected.
- The Fed’s latest announcement that they are adding $2.3 trillion in new loans to support the economy. No one can accuse the Fed of not going big.
- Sanders is out of the Presidential race.
- Stock market volatility is calming down.
- Stock market breadth is rising.
- The stock market trend is changing direction.
At the end of each show we also spend some time providing answers to questions submitted by those joining us.
You can watch the replay here: Bear Market Brews – Episode 3 – April 9, 2020
JOIN US NEXT WEEK! – We will host another live happy hour again next Thursday, April 16th. Please join us! More info at the link below:
That’s it for this week! I hope you have a Happy Easter weekend. I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll go ahead and mention it again. If you don’t have a church to attend that offers an online service, then join us for Easter at CedarCreek. They will have mulitple live services streamed online this Saturday and Sunday. You will be impressed with the quality of the online experience and the relevance of Pastor Ben’s message. I’ll be watching Sunday at 11am ET if you want to join me.
Have a great weekend,
Adam
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