Happy Saturday, y’all. Dropping in with a quick note this week to share a couple of interesting pieces we ran across recently so you can enjoy the voices of a couple of real writers. One is an Op-Ed by a long-time asset manager on the end of a historic period in the stock market (as he sees it). The other is from our favorite crabby intellectual professor on the dynamics of “work from home” which is a great read for business owners, young professionals, and mentors. Before we get to those, let’s do a quick heat check on the markets.
Since the middle of June, stocks have mainly been positive. That puts us at levels similar to…um…early June so it’s not exactly a party but positive is positive and we aren’t complaining. Directly correlated to this move up is the slowdown in interest rates and the US dollar weakening slightly. Like most economic indicators, the relation of these things is a bit chicken-and-the-egg so watching one isn’t necessarily predictive of the other. It simply “is what it is” so it’s important to note but not something on which to act.
Could we look back a year from now and see June as a market bottom? That’s always a possibility but there remain some significant hurdles to jump in the near term. Like what you ask? Well, here are a quick few…
The unemployment numbers continue to look decent despite the various announcements of corporate layoffs – it’s possible the numbers in the fall will reflect this. Inflation has mainly stopped going up (it appears) but will all prices revert like some already have or are they here to stay – only time will tell. With the inflation issue, corporate earnings for Q2 have been “passable” but nothing to brag about. And lastly, there still seems to be no end in sight for the Russian invasion of Ukraine which is very disruptive and sadly has the potential to get worse.
Those issues above all sound like significant headwinds but there are always “things”. In general, the economy and markets are showing great resiliency in a fairly difficult time. For those of us blessed with grey hair, that’s nothing new but it can be taken for granted. So, if you’re out and about this weekend and bump into The US Economy, tell them thanks and keep up the good work. They’ll appreciate the encouragement.
Have a wonderful weekend. All the best.
“RIP Big Bull Market (1982-2022)”
Andy Kessler is an author and former hedge fund manager at Velocity Capital. This is a recent article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal where he steps back and looks at the last forty years in tech. You can read it here.
“Work from Office”
Scotty Galloway is a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business as well as a consultant to many Fortune 500 companies. He shares his thoughts in a weekly blog called No Mercy/No Malice. This is a new piece he wrote and can be found here.
