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Market Bipolarity: Exuberance versus Exhaustion!

Musings on Markets

That recovery notwithstanding, uncertainties about inflation and the economy remained unresolved, and those uncertainties became part of the market story in the third quarter of 2023. The Markets in the Third Quarter Coming off a year of rising rates in 2022, interest rates have continued to command center stage in 2023. billion.

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Data Update 4 for 2024: Danger and Opportunity - Bringing Risk into the Equation!

Musings on Markets

In my last data updates for this year, I looked first at how equity markets rebounded in 2023 , driven by a stronger-than-expected economy and inflation coming down, and then at how interest rates mirrored this rebound.

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Data Update 2 for 2022: US Stocks kept winning in 2021, but…

Musings on Markets

If equity markets surprised us with their resilience in 2020, not just weathering a pandemic for the ages, but prospering in its midst, US equity markets, in particular, managed to find light even in the darkest news stories, and continued their rise through 2021. The year that was.

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Russia in Ukraine: Let Loose the Dogs of War!

Musings on Markets

As the world's attention is focused on the war in the Ukraine, it is the human toll, in death and injury, that should get our immediate attention, and you may find a focus on economics and markets to be callous. The increase in default spreads was not restricted to foreign markets, as fear also pushed up spreads in the corporate bond market.

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Data Update 1 for 2022: It is Moneyball Time!

Musings on Markets

To start the year, I returned to a ritual that I have practiced for thirty years, and that is to take a look at not just market changes over the last year, but also to get measures of the financial standing and practices of companies around the world. Happy New Year, and I hope that 2022 brings you good tidings!

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Data Update 1 for 2021: A (Data) Look Back at a Most Forgettable Year (2020)!

Musings on Markets

I spent the first week of 2021 in the same way that I have spent the first week of every year since 1995, collecting data on publicly traded companies and analyzing how they navigated the cross currents of the prior year, both in operating and market value terms. Are US companies more levered than they were a decade ago?

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Market Resilience or Investors In Denial? A Mid-year Assessment for 2023!

Musings on Markets

I am not a market prognosticator for a simple reason. I am just not good at it, and the first six months of 2023 illustrate why market timing is often the impossible dream, something that every investor aspires to be successful at, but very few succeed on a consistent basis.