The View From Fifth Avenue

AI has been the magic word and this morning it was OpenAI in the spotlight for reaching a $500bn valuation – sparking early gains for Nasdaq futures with the S&P500 not too far behind. While headline gains faded into midday before staging a turnaround to close nearly flat, debate over Fair Isaac Corporation (+17.8%) dominated the airwaves and our financials team spent the day on back-to-back calls. Overnight FICO announced a direct license program, allowing them to bypass the credit bureaus and…

US Government shutdown? No worries, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 close at another all-time high! Washington could not agree on a measure to keep the government open, and that had futures lower first thing this morning. But that also means that some economic data cannot be released (like today’s construction spending and Friday Payrolls) and investors will need to manage with the private data like ADP. Markets are looking for more rate cuts from the FOMC this year, and today’s ADP fed into that na…

Major U.S. indices started today a little indifferent (“wake me up when September ends??”). Treading water into a new month would be a fine outcome for exhausted investors who had been chasing a rally all month. But the last day of the September was not to be outdone. And thus, there was yet another advance — the S&P climbed another 40bps today to finish up over 3% this month and notched its fifth straight monthly gain (YTD returns toward 15%). Further, the Dow surged past 46k to record highs,…

U.S. stocks declined Thursday as investors reacted to a surprise drop in jobless claims, which added uncertainty to the outlook for interest rate cuts amid signs of division within the Federal Reserve. The Dow fell .4%, the S&P 500 lost .5%, while the Nasdaq was off .4%, extending this most recent two-day slide. Markets are cooling off from the recent AI-driven rally, heightened concerns over stretched valuation and fading optimism over further rate cuts. Jobless claims fell to 218k, and con…

On the eve of the opening ceremony of the Ryder Cup tournament at Bethpage Black, and with all of the debate about which team will lift the trophy on Sunday (Team USA currently favored, -152 on Fanduel, Flutter Entertainment -1.5%), shall we dovetail into a comparison of European vs US equities year-to-date?

Focus today was on the speakers, from President Trump to Fed representatives to Chairman Powell. Traders were tasked with sifting through the headlines, looking for clues on how the board was leaning for the last two meetings of 2025. Fed Governor Bowman kicked it off this morning by saying the Fed is “at serious risk of being behind the curve” and if the labor market deteriorates, they will need to “adjust policy at a faster pace and to a larger degree going forward”. Fed Atlanta Fed President…

Seasons….Crisper air bringing forth morning dew, darkness accompanies us on our commutes, and like that Fall season is here marking just three months left on the calendar! As US equities started the day to the downside before finding footing soon after the open, it was a decent seasonality reminder as we drifted higher intraday with modest to decent gains led by the CCMP/NDX and RTY. As alluded earlier, temperatures /climates change as do markets, one change of tune that is worth highlighting…

The equity dance party continued today, and everybody joined in the fun – the S&P, Nasdaq, Dow, and Russell were all exultant, each closing at new record highs. Market direction was once again set by Nvidia (+3.5%) as the company unveiled its next strategic move with a 4.5% investment in Intel (+22.8%). Treasuries, however, were dateless in a corner, coming under selling pressure after hotter-than-expected economic data drove yields up across the curve. Fresh U.S. data showed weekly jobless cl…

Admit it, there was a small part of you that wanted no cut today just to see the figurative mushroom cloud that would’ve emanated from Truth Social… That wasn’t to be however as the Fed did as expected, cutting rates 25bps and intimating a similar sized cut could come both next month and in December. There was only one dissenter, new joiner Stephen Miran, who called for 50bps. And the dot plot suggests one member wanted 150bps worth of cuts in total by year-end. We can guess who that was; angl…

It has been 33 trading sessions since the last FOMC meeting and the build-up has been palatable. Pressure from the Executive Branch has been relentless, both creative and direct, but CME data sees a 96% expectation for a 25bps rate cut (the first since last December). While inflation remains high, the Fed now must contend with a stagnant/ declining job market, and potentially a new “third mandate” on higher long-term rates (Miran influence??). If consumers were concerned about the three mandate…