The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th AvenueBy Andrew Chader

The View from 5th Avenue – 27 May 2021

Markets love infrastructure spending, and futures jumped on a NY Times headline that President Biden was going to unveil a $6 trillion (!) budget tomorrow.  Problem is, investors do not want to be the ones paying for it, so when the WSJ ran a competing headline about increased capital gains taxes being retroactive to April, the early fun was erased. Equities ended the day mixed, with the S&P up 13bps, and Nasdaq unchanged. 

The View from 5th AvenueBy Andrew Chader

The View from 5th Avenue – 24 May 2021

Markets are five days away from their first summer (unofficial) weekend and volumes (lowest so far this year) certainly felt like it.  But instead of traders doing nothing, investors kept with the momentum that started mid last week, namely buying Tech and Semis, which led to Nasdaq/ NDX 100 closing back above their 50 day moving averages. It was not all about Growth though, with just about every sector finishing green (Utilities and Pharma fell into close to finish with slight losses).

The View from 5th AvenueBy Andrew Chader

The View from 5th Avenue – 11 May 2021

The icebreaker is done and now it seems the Fed heads can talk about the talk.  While allowing some differing opinions, they generally sway as a group, and today’s speakers (Harker, Bostic and Kaplan) all took opportunities to mention tapering.  For markets that had started in a positive mood (S&P up 70bps at its high), those comments were enough to reduce any risk appetite, especially heading into a weekend.