The View from 5th Avenue

What started as a meaningful selloff in futures this morning turned into a bullish bonanza as the Nasdaq lead major equity indices on a march higher. News that Ukrainian armed forces carried out their first strike within Russian territory was alarming first thing but proved to not be as negative as it seemed (Putin had already announced the posture change a while ago). Yields were able to finish off lows, Brent gained an extra +70bps and Gold maintained an +80bps gain. Also, Bitcoin continued t…

After what felt like a constant flurry of activity last week, this Monday helped us ease into this one with a more measured approach. The market default mechanism of recouping any losses/going higher kicked in today but it hardly matched what we saw on Thursday and Friday of last week. Investors remain tentative as they try to flesh out the knock-on effects of Trump appointees and subsequent policies. Concerns about whether tariffs will in fact come into play and to what degree at the forefront…

Investors seem to be settling in after an initial burst of enthusiasm post-election, and the Nasdaq found itself in negative territory today for a third day running. The balance of tax cuts and deregulation against potential tariff and immigration effects, as well as concerns over staffing picks, have held markets in a more or less neutral state for the past few days. PPI numbers and jobless claims came in slightly hawkish, which initially pushed the DXY lower. However, the DXY was able to reco…

There has been little in the way of this latest market move higher, a brief pitstop yesterday notwithstanding. Election clarity behind us and the usual stock ebullience at this time of year providing a genuine tailwind. With the odds still in favor of Powell dressing up as Santa and delivering another rate cut next month, one of the few impediments holding the whole bull market narrative back was an inflation surprise to the upside. CPI data has entered the chat. And while CPI was up slightly Y…

With the S&P 500 having gained 5 sessions in row, it was due for a breather, especially with a fresh CPI print coming tomorrow morning. The index remains 3.4% above last Tuesday’s close (pre-election outcome) as traders adjust for a newish incoming administration. As investors are looking to the future for market themes, they must keep an eye in the short term on economic data, especially inflation. Today’s NY Fed inflation survey showed expectation had moved lower m/m to 2.87% (from 3% in Sept…

“We don’t know them all, but we owe them all.” A healthy reminder this Veterans Day as we celebrate, remember, and thank those who have served. The holiday meant a more muted tone to today’s session with the bond market shut in observance but there were a number of eye-catching moves to set the tone this week. The main story of today (despite Bitcoin’s attempt to steal the spotlight) was the will they-won’t they between the S&P500 and the 6000 level. Spoiler alert, the index forged ahead in the…

While the world was still digesting yesterday’s US Presidential election, The Fed quietly forged ahead, continuing to execute their existing action plan (“today is Fed Day!?”), cutting rates by 25bps as widely expected. This time, there were no dissenters (last cut there was one in Michelle Bowman). The statement seemed boiler plate with no explicit acknowledgement of election uncertainty or related issues and Powell delivered the expected message of ‘steady as she goes’ regarding the dots and…

The 47th President of the United States of America has been elected. Donald J Trump will assume office in January and to say US markets are thrilled is an understatement. In a surprise to most political pundits, it did not take multiple days to count the votes and determine a winner but instead the race was called at 5:30am after Trump swept the swing states that he had previously lost to President Biden in 2020. Main US indexes and treasury rates jumped on the news, with both the S&P 500 and N…

Election day is finally here in the states, the ballot storm has arrived. As we await results of our new President-In-Elect, which may take some time, hoping sooner rather than later, I strongly hope that we live up to the first word of our country….”UNITED” we should stand. Speaking of united equities soared in unison forming a sea of green, as it was a rather tame day across major averages. Interesting stat from our very own Ben Denney, on average election day over the last 10 years is up +90…

Oh, it’s going to be a week, isn’t it? You know so when the FOMC is taking a backseat on the list of market-moving events on the weekly itinerary. The market hasn’t deviated much over the last few weeks in its expectations, a 25bps cut largely factored in, a quite soft NFP on Friday pretty much confirming it. Much speculation remains over the election however, and a surprising poll out of Iowa has ever, EVER so slightly nudged VP Harris back into the ‘lead.’ That has caused a bit of tumult in t…