Displaying items by tag: bull market

(New York)

The last few weeks have seen good performance out of US indexes. Much of the credit has gone to the idea that investors were awaiting a new stimulus bill at any moment. However, why the market rose is actually less important than how it did so. One of the very worrying things about the market’s recovery in the early summer was how seemingly all of it was led by FAAMG, with extremely limited breadth. That is exactly what made the last several weeks so special—it finally broke that trend. Over the last three months the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (ESP) has outperformed the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) 13% to 10%. The reason why is that a huge cut of stocks are rising, not just the largest stocks. The last ten days have seen the biggest jump, with advancing stocks outnumbering decliners 2 to 1. That is called a “breadth thrust” and it is very rare and very bullish. It has happened just 29 times since 1990, and 96% of the time the market is higher 12 months later.

FINSUM: This does not mean the market is going to rocketship right away, but in general this has been a very solid indicator of rising markets.

(San Francisco)

Even the most die-hard Apple investor must be feeling a little woozy right now. The company’s market cap just surpassed $2 tn. And guess what—half of that came in the last five months. Yes, the company doubled in value since the start of the pandemic and is now worth $2 tn! A couple months ago many were saying Apple was a bargain, now it seems to have a very significant premium. So the big question for investors—is it time to cash out because things feel very toppy, or do you stick with it? The company’s earnings have been phenomenal. So good in fact that Goldman made a blunt comment about flubbing its forecasts, saying “It turns out that we and consensus weren't even in the ballpark in terms of what was possible.”

FINSUM: $2 tn is a scary number, but it feels like it would be wise to stick with Apple right now. Momentum is good and there does not seem to be a big headwind that would wound the stock.

(New York)

Wondering where the market is headed? (so is everyone!) Well, Goldman Sachs put out a pretty unequivocal opinion about it today. Despite the market being at all-time highs when the country is in a recession and unemployment massive, the bank says that the S&P 500 will rise another 7% to close out the year. The only damper in the bank’s forecast is the election. Goldman says it is assuming a Democratic victory, and that could cause higher taxes that could dent the market a bit. GS also says Treasury yields will fall to 1.1% by the end of the year.

FINSUM: So we have two big competing feelings here. On the one hand, with the Fed so strongly in support of markets (and another fiscal stimulus likely), it seems like it could be smooth sailing. On the other hand, 51% of the entire market’s gain since the bottom in March has come from five stocks. On the whole, we think gains are more likely than losses.

(Washington)

A lot of investors are worried about what will happen to stocks if Biden wins, and even more worryingly, if the Democrats sweep the election. The general fear is that without at least a Republican Senate, the Democrats could give in to their more leftist impulses and create policies which would be detrimental to the financial-economic paradigm. However, UBS argues that even if Biden hikes corporate taxes up to his planned 28%, he will offset that with big economic spending to accelerate the recovery, which should more than make up for the loss of profits because of taxes.

FINSUM: This makes pretty good sense. Even if taxes are raised, it is not like the Democrats are planning to balance the budget. Large amounts of deficit spending will likely help keep stocks afloat.

(New York)

Bank of America’s head of global research, in conjunction with the head of their private bank, has just given a major midyear update to clients. The message: we are at the start of a bull market. While they think the recovery might be a little bumpy, in the longer term, they believe there is a great economy on the other side and long-term investors would do well to get into the market on down days in the immediate future.”

FINSUM: Inside these broader predictions was another interesting one- so if stocks are going to rise, which sectors gain the most? BOA’s answer was that despite being overbought, tech still seems likely to see the most gains because the pandemic has accelerated areas that benefit them the most, including automation, cloud-computing, and live streaming.